Category Archives: Jordan Peterson

This Insight is part of GNETsGender and Online Violent Extremismseries in partnership withMonash Gender, Peace and Security Centre. This series aligns with the UNs 16 Days of Activism Against Gendered Violence (25 November-10 December).

Introduction

In the decade following the 2014 Isla Vista killing spree by self-described incel Elliot Rodger, there has been increasing academic and media interest in the online incel community and the potential threat of violent extremism its members pose. Particular attention has been paid to social media websites like 4chan, 8kun and Reddit and their role as online sanctuaries that facilitate the growth and spread of extreme misogynistic digital rhetoric. Incels are one of many subgroups that comprise this loose coalition of antifeminist groups animated by the Red Pill philosophy, known as the manosphere.

A key concern for counterterrorism researchers is the apparent ease with which disaffected young men are radicalised and indeed, are self-radicalising through their participation in the manosphere via user-generated content like internet memes. The rise of the alt-right since 2015 and the election of Donald Trump have demonstrated the utility of memes on social media as a vehicle for the spread of far-right and misogynistic propaganda, simultaneously highlighting the inability of conventional P/CVE approaches to understand and intervene in these spaces. Incels, being terminally online and holding an outsized influence in meme subcultures, are particularly influential in the creation and spread of antifeminist memes, with popular templates such as Virgin vs Chad being widely used in mainstream digital spaces.

Since the incel worldview is preoccupied with the supposedly feminist-controlled gender and sexual hierarchy articulated in the nihilist Black Pill interpretation of the Red Pill philosophy, rigid representations of masculinities are a central visual and discursive feature of incel memes. Based on my research into incel memes (forthcoming), this Insight provides a comparative analysis of the Virgin vs Chad and Wojak incel-aligned meme templates through the lens of hegemonic masculinity theory, focusing on how masculinities are represented in these memes and the implications of this for their virality online.

I argue that the virality of incel memes is contingent upon their alignment with mainstream portrayals of idealised masculinities and their emphasis on individual agency, rather than the appeal of the incel worldview itself. They draw on the misogyny that already exists as a political force in the wider culture and further legitimise patriarchal structures. Securitising incels as highly misogynistic or extreme obscures this relationship and the real threat it represents; the political mainstreaming of inceldom into the hegemonic masculine bloc of patriarchy itself, a process already underway via antifeminist gurus like Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson.

Misogynistic Ideologies and Incel Memes

Both the Red and Black Pills portray gender relations as dominated by feminism and structured according to a hierarchy of physical attractiveness dictated by female desire, with men holding no power or privilege in society. This lookist hierarchy essentialises men into three broad categories of masculinities reflective of their desirability and access to female sexual attention: alpha males that sleep with the majority of women, beta males who can sleep with women that are undesirable to alphas, and incels, who are excluded from sexual relationships with women altogether.

The Red Pill philosophy allows space for men to move between these masculinities through a combination of self-improvement and manipulating women into having sex by hacking their supposedly inherent biological instincts. The Black Pill, on the other hand, is far more rigid and genetically deterministic. Since incels believe physical attractiveness is genetic, they tend to view these masculinities as impermeable and self-improvement near-impossible. Black Pill incels view themselves as doomed to a life of celibacy unless the structure of gendered social relations itself changes. This worldview is responsible for the nihilism and fatalism that characterises the incel subculture.

This lookist hierarchy, and the incel response to it, are reflected in the Virgin vs Chad and Wojak incel-aligned meme templates:

Fig. 1: Virgin vs Chad meme template

Fig 2: Wojak meme template

In Fig. 1, the left-hand Virgin character is associated with negative or undesirable traits, functioning as a stand-in for beta or incel masculinities. This is contrasted with the Chad character who represents alpha masculinities and is associated with positive, desirable traits. Since these characteristics are commonly behavioural as often as they are physical, this template can be seen as representative of the Red Pill exhortation to be an alpha male to gain female sexual attention. In Fig. 2, the Wojak character represents feelings of hopelessness, depression, fatalism or nihilism, and is regularly used as a reaction image in response to content that prompts these feelings in the user. In incel communities, it is often used to signify resigned acceptance of the Black Pill characterisation of the lookist hierarchy and express empathy for other incels experiences, failures, and feelings about it.

Hegemonic Masculinities and the Virality of Incel Memes

Both meme templates are extremely popular, ranking in the top 3% of the most popular memes on the Know Your Meme online database. My research found, however, that only the Virgin vs Chad template can be considered mainstream, due to its intertextual connections with various other popular memes, its place as an ordinary term in mainstream online discourse, and the sustained popularity of its derivatives. While the Wojak meme remains popular and has spawned its own series of derivatives, these templates have not broken into mainstream cultural discourse in the same way. This disparity in mainstream cultural integration has little to do with their portrayal of misogynistic discourses both meme templates are routinely used to illustrate extreme antifeminist or incel worldviews but rather their representation of masculinities and how these align with idealised expressions of masculinity in wider society.

Based primarily on the work of R.W Connell and a reformulation of Gramscis theory of cultural hegemony, hegemonic masculinity theory examines the power relations between multiple masculinities within patriarchal structures and how dominant conceptions of idealised masculinity are realised. Under patriarchy, masculinity always occupies the hegemonic position, but the particular configuration of idealised masculinity is constantly shifting to reflect changing gender relations and the cultural expectations of the day.

In the past century, three primary expressions of idealised or hegemonic masculinity have emerged: the traditional masculinity epitomised by figures like John Wayne or Don Draper from the TV series Mad Men; the transnational business masculinity or Sensitive New Man exemplified by Barack Obama or Phil Dunphy from the sitcom Modern Family; and the contemporary geek entrepreneur represented by Mark Zuckerberg or Tony Stark. These masculinities reflect cultural expectations of what constitutes a male role model in their respective time periods and the configuration of gender practice that legitimises mens domination of women under patriarchy.

In response to the rise of second-wave feminism in the 1970s and neoliberal globalisation in the 1980s, the self-sufficient, rational breadwinner archetype of traditional masculinity was replaced by the technocratic and educated New Man. This archetype supposedly represented a more caring and emotionally literate masculinity that embraced equality in domestic life and valued collaboration. In the Web 2.0 era, the geek entrepreneur figure has risen to prominence, combining the tortured genius technological innovator of Silicon Valley with the emotional suffering and interests of nerd culture that has come to dominate online spaces. However, while these masculinities differ enormously in their idealised traits, such as the accepted role of masculine emotional expression and the preferred competencies of their respective modes of production, all three portray individual agency as the most valuable trait of the ideal man. Under patriarchy, men are defined by their ability to impose their will on the world around them.

Conversely, the Black Pill nihilism of the incel worldview is predicated upon the impossibility of overcoming the lookist hierarchy imposed upon men. In this way, incel memes that represent masculinities solely in these terms do not go viral in mainstream digital spaces in the same way as templates that align with the idealisation of individual masculine agency in hegemonic masculinities. Iterations of incel memes like Virgin vs Chad that refrain from engaging in fatalistic or self-pitying representations of masculinity have no issue integrating with the mainstream and becoming embedded in popular meme culture. This phenomenon should compel scholars of gender and extremism to reevaluate exactly what cultural forces are responsible for the seemingly exponential growth of extreme antifeminist ideologies like inceldom.

Confronting Mainstream Misogyny

The relationship between inceldom and mainstream misogyny holds significant implications for extremism researchers seeking to understand the appeal of incel and other antifeminist worldviews are significant. The fatalistic nature of inceldom is the primary barrier to the incel worldview going mainstream. This is not to diminish the fact that inceldom is an extreme form of misogyny, but rather to highlight the tendency of conventional P/CVE approaches to securitise incels as somehow deviant or outside the broader societal culture of misogyny. This approach is misguided and obscures how the incel worldview both draws from and contributes to the reinforcement of patriarchy by situating incels in opposition to mainstream masculinities and the inherent misogyny these embody.

The true threat of inceldom, then, is its potential to normalise and reintegrate these ideologies into the hegemonic masculine framework of patriarchy. This is not mere speculation; the explosive popularity of antifeminist gurus like Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson indicates that this process is already underway. This shift carries severe political implications, as the Overton window of mainstream misogyny increasingly shifts towards the acceptance of violent antifeminist ideologies.

While there is a need for extremism researchers to find ways to intervene in extremist subcultures, we should not lose sight of the fact that terrorism and extremist violence serve a political agenda. The gradual normalisation of inceldom suggests that incel-related violence has already been somewhat successful in achieving this. To effectively counter the rising tide of antifeminism and misogynist extremism in society, gender and extremism researchers must examine incels within the broader context of hegemonic masculinities and acceptable misogyny.

Inceldom and other antifeminist subcultures have an outsized influence on the development of online meme culture. Still, it is social media algorithms on mainstream platforms that amplify these ideologies and make possible their normalisation into the mainstream, geared as they are to the interests of young, white men. If the rising tide of misogyny is to be pushed back, the role of mainstream misogyny in the function of social media algorithms needs to be addressed, and the algorithms transformed to reflect the composition of the entire online community. Failure to do so will see incel ideologies become integrated, possibly even dominant, in the hegemonic structure of patriarchy.

Jayden Haworth holds a Masters of International Relations by Research from Monash University, with his dissertation Men, Masculinities and Memes: Mainstream Digital Culture and the Legitimation of Incel Discourses undergoing editing for journal publication.

View original post here:

Men, Masculinities and Memes: The Case of Incels GNET - GNET

The Jordan B. Peterson PodcastNov 27, 2023

Dr. Jordan B Peterson sits down with the Secretary General of Great Arab Minds, His Excellency Saeed Al Nazari. They discuss the origins of the United Arab Emirates, how the Abraham Accords and a Tri-Faith system have taken effect and opened dialogue, the projects spearheaded by Saeed for the education, entrepreneurialism and empowerment of young Emiratees, and why the unique vision and strong values of the UAE have lifted the country to unimaginable heights in only half a century.

His Excellency Saeed Al Nazari is the Secretary General of Great Arab Minds. He is also spearheading Transformational Projects and Creative Affairs at the Executive Office of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, in addition to the Mohammed bin Rashid Leadership Development Center and the Arab Strategy Forum.

- Links -

For His Excellency Saeed Al Nazari:

On Instagram https://instagram.com/saeedalnazari?igshid=NzZlODBkYWE4Ng==

On X https://x.com/SaeedAlnazari?s=20

On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeedalnazari?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Read more here:

An Alternative to Western Nihilism | His Excellency Saeed Al Nazari - The Daily Wire

The Jordan B. Peterson PodcastNov 23, 2023

Dr. Jordan B Peterson sits down with Save Canada organizers Josh and Nick Alexander. They discuss the resurgence of activism for christian ideals and family values, the abhorrent response from administrative bodies, mainstream media, and law enforcement, the threats and physical violence levied against their family and organization, and what their battle really means for Canada and the world at large.

Josh Alexander is a 17 year old Christian student activist. Josh has been denied an education at the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board since November 2022, after speaking out against the radical left wing gender ideology in schools. After three arrests since February, one having been at his highschool, Josh has continued to publicly uphold his convictions in the face of the rapidly developing censorious state.

Nick Alexander is the older brother of Josh Alexander. He has been arrested 3 times and removed from his fire department for exercising his rights to oppose the mainstream narrative. Nick recently made headlines after being assaulted with an edged weapon by union supported counter protestors and then arrested. Together Josh and Nick lead the Save Canada movement as it sweeps the country bringing the message of truth to our youth and providing a rallying point for concerned citizens.

- Links -

For Josh and Nick Alexander:

Josh's X: https://x.com/officialJosh_A?t=qZoEDTEB1j3Q-U1OfPUnJA&s=09

Nick's X: https://x.com/Nick_SaveCanada?t=VjnOg0J9wS3no8plwh-QXg&s=09

Josh's Instagram: https://instagram.com/josh.alexander_savecanada?igshid=NzZlODBkYWE4Ng==

Nick's Instagram: https://instagram.com/nick.alexander_savecanada?igshid=NzZlODBkYWE4Ng==

Save Canada website: https://savecanada.shop/

Here is the original post:

The Future of Canada | Josh & Nick Alexander - The Daily Wire

Let us suppose that on Thanksgiving Day your mother, a woman of outstanding Catholic piety and adorned with the virtues, has baked an artisanal loaf of sourdough bread and, having sliced off a piece, has placed it still steaming, buttered, before you on a plate. Smiling, she awaits your response.

Something of the highest nobility has been done for you, and now it becomes a test, to see whether your character is appropriate to the gift.

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, to respond properly to this kindness, you must draw upon four distinct virtues not one, but four. These virtues are as if nested, because the principles or causes of the breads being given to you are themselves nested.

The First Cause of your having received this bread is God, who made you and your mother, and her virtues, and the wheat and everything else God who is still intimately concerned with them, knowing even the number of molecules in the slice (like the hairs on your head) and lets not omit it also its flavor-fulness and crumb, and how it specially delights you.

This original cause of good requires on your part the response of due cult (as St. Thomas puts it). And so, you say a blessing, perhaps the traditional Hamotzi (who brings forth), like the one Jesus would have said:

Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu

Blessed are You Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.

To respond properly to this gift here and now, of this particular piece of bread, it becomes due, to you, to worship God.

What you say in worship is indeed a blessing. We call it saying grace. Yet grace here means expressing that we take pleasure (Latin: gratus) in the gift and the giver.

Or we can call it giving a thank the original term was singular, related to think meaning that we think of, we tarry in thought upon, the gift and the giver with delight. But because, strictly, we are thus turning with thanks towards the one we recognize as our Creator, we are worshipping God, through the virtue of religion. So religion is the first of the four virtues that we must show.

But the cause or principle of your receiving the bread there is not merely God, your creator, but also your mother, your co-creator without whom you would not have been born, and would not have survived to sit there, and would not have learned the word bread, or good manners in eating it, or that you should smile, and chew 21 times (or whatever), and break the bread before taking a bite.

And likely it was your mother who taught you the words even to say grace. And so yes, a machine might stuff bread down your throat. But that you are in a position to take and eat it as a human being is mainly the work of your mother and father. Everything that is received is received in the manner of the recipient, and this manner good manners is given to you by that woman there.

Now, a specific type of reverence and indeed worship (in the old sense) is due to our parents as such. You know exactly what this is if your mom has passed away, because no one else can give you bread in the way that it was your mom who gave you bread. St. Thomas calls the habit of showing such reverence, piety. So this is the second virtue you need to draw upon: piety, nested within religion.

And if as is likely your mother taught piety to you also, then your giving thanks is itself her gift. But she is Gods gift, and thus Thank you, mom is twice nested within Thank you, God.

But then your mother, we are supposing, is adorned with grace and virtues. Suppose she were St. Zlie Gurin Martin (the mother of St. Thrse of Lisieux), or St. Wiktoria Ulma. But perhaps its enough to say: shes a baptized wife and mother in the state of grace. Such a dignity is already not natural: it is literally out of this world.

Or simply ponder what any mother can claim by way of achievement: the dignity and merits of nights getting up with her children, scrubbing floors and cleaning, of feeling cares and shedding tears, of shopping for you and the never-ending car rides all those dignities we honor mothers for (we used to honor mothers for) on Mothers Day. She has them even when it is not Mothers Day.

If a king or ambassador if Travis Kelce had brought you the bread, you would have been overcome with astonishment. Jordan Peterson was in my house, and he thought to cut a slice of bread and bring it to me. But one greater than Jordan Peterson (for you) is here.

A distinct virtue is needed for recognizing such excellence, and for seeing it as a secondary cause under God, and ordered within paternal and maternal authority we need a third virtue for expressing thoughts of delight (thanks) on that basis. The ancients called it observantia, observance.

And then, fourth, there is the mere fact that someone or other did some good thing or other to you: acting as a benefactor, to whom you are a beneficiary, not of a random, but of a deliberate act of kindness. Now the due response, when you look at the gift simply under the aspect of a benefactor and benefit, becomes simply giving thanks purely so, with nothing added. Thus (St. Thomas says) the fourth requisite virtue is gratitude nested within the other three.

This Thanksgiving, then, give thanks that you can give a fourfold thanks. At dinner, give thanks for the benefaction of your fellow man, grateful too for Gods polity of bestowed excellence, while you honor your mother and father, and bless the God of all creation who brings forth bread, and turkey and gravy, from the earth.

Originally posted here:

Thanks within Thanks - The Catholic Thing

Highlights

Andrew Tate, in recent years, has become a celebrity figure who is arguably just as controversial as the Canadian psychologist and media commentator, Jordan Peterson, but for different reasons. While those who are opposed to his message continue to scold him for being a misogynistic predator, following the charges and horrific allegations made against him according to the New York Times, Mikhaila Peterson has had a different experience.

Before Andrew Tate's arrest in Romania in December 2022, he rose to popularity as a professional kickboxer, social media influencer, and wealthy businessman who openly boasted about his wealth. Mikhaila details the moment she met with Tate in 2019 after offering to buy her a plane ticket to Romania. Based on her interaction, let's find out everything that Mikhaila Peterson has said about Andrew Tate.

Long before Andrew Tate became a TikTok sensation defined by controversy, he was known as nothing more than a millionaire kickboxer. Mikhaila Peterson claimed that he pitched her an idea about a subscription platform for herself and her father, Jordan Peterson, who at the time was being banned from Gmail and other social media platforms because of his content.

And so, when Tate offered to fly her out to Romania to discuss this business idea, being that she was in Germany at the time, she didn't hesitate. The kind gesture of Tate to buy her a plane ticket in addition to sharing his lucrative business plans made her jump at the opportunity. She credits her success to her eagerness to explore new opportunities, which she did with the Tate brothers.

While no one knows for sure exactly what happened in Romania between Andrew Tate and Mikhaila Peterson, she praised Andrew and Tristan Tate for their hospitality.

She said this in a Twitter podcast with Jordan Peterson, "When I went, they were nice to me. Like, I actually had a pretty good time. He drove me around in his Bugatti, and we saw castles, which was a weird experience." Given Andrew Tate's womanizing and "pimpish" nature, she made it a point to dispel any rumors.

RELATED: The Truth About Jordan Peterson's Daughter Mikhaila's Relationship With Andrew Tate

Tate also backed up the details of her account, stating on the Fresh and Fit podcast, "She's a nice lady. Nothing happened - I spoke to her a bit. She was in Germany I think. I said 'Hey, Romania's not so far away... Come visit, we'll go see some castles. We'll jump in one of my seventeen super cars. And that's what we did - that's the story."

But, despite Mikhaila's pleasant report from her Andrew Tate experience, her father had strong opposing views about the rising social media star once he received additional details.

Jordan Peterson, despite his wealthy net worth, is an advocate for traditional morals, ethics, and values, and it's clear to see that he's done his best to instill those same principles in his daughter. So when she disclosed the business idea Andrew Tate shared with her involving the monetization of women's online adult content, Jordan Peterson unleashed his verbal assault.

According to Sportsmanor, Peterson referred to Andrew Tate as "The Lowest Form of Life," especially following the charges he received on rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group to sexually exploit women in June 2023.

While on the podcast with her father, Mikhaila recalled vaguely what Tate explained to her about his adult video content business model saying, "I can't remember that well, but it was something like: 'Women who want to do webcam stuff... Like, they already want to do it... I help them make way more money, and I take a percentage.' And so I was like, Okay... I wasn't like, That seems like a wonderful business model."

Jordan Peterson, with his background in psychology, slammed Tate for the predatory manipulation involved in encouraging women to sexually exploit themselves for profit. Mikhaila said she was told this in 2019, which validates the charges brought against Tate in 2023.

Despite the more disturbing revelations that came about during her visit to Romania, Mikhaila didn't completely throw Tate under the bus. She affirms that she was interested in learning how Tate became a millionaire, and after spending time with him, found him to be insightful in many ways.

Mikhaila was especially intrigued by the subscription platform that he mentioned to her, which was one of the main benefits of her trip. Besides his Machiavellian brilliance, she also described him as a "human shark." And he may have proved to be just that as time went by.

In addition to giving credit to his intelligence, the recently remarried Mikhaila Peterson didn't hide the fact that she developed an undeniable interest in Andrew Tate. The combination of his polished look, sharp intellect, yet dangerous element prompted her to compare him to a "human shark."

RELATED: Inside Jordan Peterson's Daughter Mikhaila's Growing Business Empire

She had this to say about him during the podcast with her father, "I remember telling him, 'You kind of remind me of a human shark'. I don't know what it was, but I was like 'You're interesting. I don't know if it's your eyes or something, but you kind of remind me of a human shark."" Perhaps it was the "human shark" predatory instinct in Andrew Tate that resulted in his shocking arrest on charges of rape and human trafficking.

Social media scrutiny can be relentless, especially when there are rumors of relationships surrounding prominent celebrity figures. And while Andrew Tate was nowhere close to his present level of fame in 2019, the photos of himself and Mikhaila were enough to stir speculations of a possible relationship. But she sharply denied those claims, because during this time, she was married to her now ex-husband, Andrey Korikov, with whom she shares a daughter.

RELATED: How Much Does Ben Shapiro And Jordan Peterson Make From The Daily Wire?

Mikhaila remains adamant that, despite sharing a few drinks and having fun with Andrew and Tristan Tate, she was there to learn about monetizing content and starting a paywall.

But, given Andrew Tate's infamous reputation with the ladies, fans thought that she was just another conquest of the Top G. She made it clear that she only spent one day with Tate, then returned to Canada. Since her divorce, Mikhaila has been remarried to her second husband, Jordan Fuller, which took place in 2022.

Like her father, Jordan Peterson, Mikhaila has been making controversial waves through her podcast, The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast, where she invites experts in different fields to discuss topics on health, politics, and other sensational cultural issues. She is also the business-savvy CEO of Luminite Enterprises, her father's media and publishing company.

Due to her history of overcoming rare autoimmune and mood disorders, she has been able to enlighten and inspire others as a lifestyle and diet blogger. As a result of a history battling with her health, she has been a strong advocate of the carnivore diet, a strictly meat-based diet which Joe Rogan has also experimented with.

Read the original:

Here's Everything Jordan Peterson's Daughter Mikhaila Has Said ... - TheThings

Deshawn Warner has skyrocketed up national rankings, but Kansas football now has competition with two of college footballs premier powerhouses.

The Kansas Jayhawks are on pace to cap off their best recruiting class in over a decade. They rank 49th nationally, which is good for No. 7 in the new-look Big 12. But while Kansas football head coach Lance Leipold is taking the program to unparalleled heights, the teams success also means they have to compete with the top dogs.

Deshawn Warner recently soared up recruiting rankings. He now holds four stars on 247 Sports and is rated the 173th player in the country, passing fellow KU pledge Dakyus Brinkley. Warner is a versatile power edge rusher who was regarded as a huge get for defensive line coach Jim Panagos.

Now, Kansas coaching staff must work their tails off to preserve Warners commitment until National Signing Day. He received scholarship offers from two top programs in the Big 12.

Over the past two weeks, Warner has been offered by Michigan and Ohio State. He will presumably continue to rack up new opportunities as he continues his strong senior year at Desert Edge. MaxPreps has him down for ten sacks and 33 total tackles across the first six games.

Ultimately, these are the types of things schools have to deal with during a rebuild. Until Kansas becomes a school that the best recruiting targets commit to, they will continue to worry about losing their best pledges to more highly regarded programs.

One thing to monitor is that Warner has ties to a pair of KU commits. Defensive backs coach Jordan Peterson has been recruiting heavily in Arizona and was responsible for the commitments of Aundre Gibson and Jonathan Kamara. Gibson is Warners cousin. Losing him could mean losing the others.

Lets hope Kansas can keep Warner on board. He and Brinkley can become an elite edge rusher duo at KU.

Here is a scouting report of Warners game on Phog.net.

Were just big fans of the overall profile and the senior tape really pops as hes constantly creating pressure off the edge, winning with both speed and power. To be honest, theres really not a ton of third-party verified information out there when it comes to the measurements and all that, but he looks to have plenty of growth potential, especially in the lower half. He also owns some impressive track and field markers like his 41-2 effort in the triple jump. Thats notable because recent NFL Draft trends show that a lot of the edge rushers selected early on these days did track and field in high school, and to a high degree, especially with the jumps. I also think four pick-sixes over the past three years is pretty wild. Impressive get for Kansas and someone that can absolutely be a true different-maker in the Big 12 if he keeps progressing.

See the rest here:

Kansas football recruiting: Jayhawk commit adding substantial offers - Through the Phog

Having children is saving the world, Hungarian President Katalin Novk recently declared before a crowd at Brigham Young University. The first woman president of Hungary traveled to Utah to warn Americans of the demographic ice age threatening the West. Aging populations and declining fertility rates, she said, are signs that we are about to give up on our future.

Novks speech came on the heels of an address at the United Nations General Assembly and meetings with Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Elon Musk. During her U.S. tour, she has been touting Hungarys family policies and urging others to follow suit all while somewhat burying the lede that this once-promising post-Soviet democracy has become a bastion of nativism and anti-LGBTQ reactionism under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbn.

Hungary has chosen to aggressively subsidize child-rearing while also doing its utmost to deter migrants from outside of the European Union (EU) and to cultivate a hostile environment for those already in the country. The state has erected a menacing, electrified fence topped with razor wire along portions of its southern border. The Orbn government has repeatedly fought EU institutions on its anti-migrant policies. This year, the European Court of Justice found a Hungarian law requiring asylum seekers to file their applications in embassies outside the country regardless of whether or not they had already arrived in Hungary to be in violation of EU law.

Aside from migration, the Hungarian government has promoted a highly restrictive view of what constitutes a healthy family. LGBTQ Hungarians have been consistently cut out from this definition. At this years Budapest Demographic Summit, Jordan Peterson who joined a participants list that included Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and self-styled postliberal Gladden Pappindeclared that the proper encapsulating structure around the infant are united and combined parents, man and woman. Hungarian law and political culture certainly reflects the same sentiments. Same-sex couples cannot adopt, and the Hungarian constitution was amended in 2020 to state that based on marriage and the parent-child relation. The mother is a woman, the father a man. Orbn himself took to the stage to insist, We need a change in the political course. We have to make sure that family-friendly, conservative powers take over in as many European countries as possible.

The Orbn governments generous support for traditional, heterosexual families and its hostility to both LGBTQ rights and foreign immigration offers a clear example of a country that sees its path to growth in starkly ethno-nationalist terms. And this willingness to use the state to promote a sort of nativist idyll is part of why so many self-styled postliberals and other authoritarian-curious American intellectuals have flocked to Budapest in recent years.

In the U.S., even with the Supreme Courts Obergefell decision still standing, right-wing scholars and activists have continued to attack the validity of same-sex marriage. Arguments like the one put forth by Jason Carroll of BYU-Provo and Walter Schrumm of Kansas State place reproduction at the center. In a 2016 article in the Ave Maria Law Review, they wrote: Because of the critical role opposite-sex marriage plays in perpetuating and maintaining the vital conceptual link between marriage and procreation, it warrants the exclusive recognition, promotion and protection of the state.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year,I argued that the Dobbs decision had opened up a new landscape wherein we saw right-wingers fusing anti-immigration politics with a call to seize on the momentum of abortion restriction and promote family policies. It struck me then as a poisonous cocktail. Today, with Vivek Ramwaswamy running on a platform in which he refers to the nuclear family as the greatest form of governance known to mankind while also advocating for ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants, I am even more alarmed.

During a 2022 Dr. Phil discussion on procreation, on which I was a panelist, things quickly turned in the direction of hard-right policies around family planning. One of the most extreme co-panelists, Jesse Lee Peterson, exclaimed that we definitely need white babies! For my part, I stressed that there are really two big tools that countries have for fighting population decline and aging: incentivizing birth and increasing immigration. What I find worrying is when advocates opt only for the former and totally abandon the latter. Unfortunately, this combination is increasingly common, and Petersons politics can no longer be said to be strictly fringe. Just last week, Donald Trump expressed similarly ethno-nationalist anti-immigrant views in the most noxious terms possible, telling an interviewer that undocumented immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.

Immigration offers an obvious means of increasing the overall population simply by adding residents. Moreover, it can help combat aging trends. In many cases, migrant populations across the EU are younger than native-born populations. Per Eurostat, as of 2021, the median age of immigrants in member states was 30 years, compared to the EUs total population median of 44.4 years as of Jan. 1, 2022. Fertility rates among foreign-born mothers are rising across the EU, accounting for 21% of live births across the EU in 2020.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

And, as I noted at the outset, here in the U.S., the fall of Roe and the rise of more aggressively pro-natalist rhetoric has put a decidedly nativist style of politics at the center of our own debates about population growth and aging. The staunchly anti-immigration Tucker Carlson has leaned heavily into the far-right "great replacement" theory precisely because he sees Americas demographic changes combined with low native-born fertility rates as a plot to replace the current electorate. 2022 Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters flirted with backing bans on contraceptives as he and other hardliners looked to seize on the Dobbs decision. Masters, of course, argued for immigration restrictions and accused Democrats of seeking to import voters via refugees and illegal immigrants.

Yet immigrants remain an engine of American growth. In 2017, the fertility rate of foreign-born women in the U.S. stood at 2.18, a whopping figure for a world in which multiple European countries are seeing overall rates below 1.5. Overall population growth in the U.S., already sluggish before the pandemic, ground to record lows in 2021 and 2022.Analysis from Brookings stresses how immigration largely filled the gap in the little growth that was seen.

So there is real cause for concern when it comes to fueling the next generation of growth in the United States. Offering state support for childbearing and families can, of course, be a liberal and even progressive policy. It is a national embarrassment how many Americans face potentially knee-buckling hospital bills just for giving birth. But family is also a fraught concept that the right has regularly sought to define down to its narrowest attributes. In a post-Dobbs landscape of receding reproductive rights, that restrictive definition begins to appear more like a straight jacket. Paired with hostility to foreign immigration the very thing that could supercharge American growth for the 21st century, and which only stands to rise amidst the changes of a warming world such politics only offers illiberalism and decline. It becomes clear that when the hard right argues that having children will save the world, they mean only the narrow, exclusionary world that they inhabit.

See the original post here:

Have children, save the world? The right's push for the right kind of ... - Salon

This summer, a movie unheralded in the mainstream, Sound of Freedom, became the sleeper hit of 2023. It tells the story of Tim Ballard, an ex-federal employee, who founded the nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), whose mission was to tackle international sex traffickers.

Despite average reviews, the movie became a smash hit among Christians and other conservatives concerned about child sex trafficking. Christian megastar and erstwhile screen Jesus, Jim Caviezel, played Ballard. The movie made over $180 million domestically and another $50 million internationally.

Since founding the organization in 2013, Ballard has credited OUR with rescuing thousands of trafficking victims. He became prominent in conservative Christian circles and testified in Congress. Trump invited him to join a White House anti-trafficking advisory board.

But this veneer of a concerned citizen hid a morally bankrupt predator. Five women who worked with him to fight sex crimes have sued him for sexual assault and emotional abuse. Their lawsuit says.

Defendant Ballard, intentionally, knowingly or recklessly, committed battery and sexual assault of Plaintiffs, as all sexual touching was done under the Couples Ruse in order to help save trafficked children and women

He also faces a second suit on similar grounds. All of this occurring on the heels of his resignation from OUR after rumors of his sexual aggression hit the streets in August.

Ballards technique was simple. Using the so-called couples ruse, he invited his victims to pose as his wife to fool traffickers during rescue missions. He then coerced them into sharing a bed or showering together. The lawsuit states,

Ballard claims that the couples ruse was an undercover tool to prevent detection by pedophiles when Ballard would not engage in sexual touching of the trafficked women offered up to him in strip clubs and massage parlors across the world.

The 30-page lawsuit continues: Ballard soon began abusing the couples ruse and eventually used the ruse as a tool for sexual grooming and used his relationships to coerce the women into sexual contact.

Is anyone surprised?

Ballard has more arrows in his MAGA quiver. He and supporters of OUR have been accused of promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. Ballard denied it. He claimed the charge was made to discredit him and the film.

He damaged his case when, in an interview with Jordan Peterson (need I say more?), he claimed to have raided a West African baby factory, where children were sold for organ harvesting and Satanic ritual abuse, echoing a QAnon theory.

To add a financial crimeangle to the sordid affair, one of the film's executive producers pled guilty to defrauding Medicare of $89 million in 2020.

Caviezel also subscribes to the QAnon madness. At a 2021 event promoting the film, he claimed traffickers were harvesting adrenaline from children.

On a side note, Sound of Freedom garnered a respectable 7.8 rating on IMDB. However, if you analyze the breakdown, 58.1% of the raters gave it a 10. This enthusiasm does not reflect an honest appraisal of the film's merits the #1 IMDB-rated movie, The Shawshank Redemption (9.3), scored only 55.0% perfect scores. Instead, it speaks to the uncritical enthusiasm of zealots promoting propaganda and wishful thinking as a true story.

In the same way as they do with their fundamentalist version of religion.

Original post:

Sound of Freedom anti-sex trafficking "hero" charged with sex crimes - Daily Kos

Jordan Peterson is a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, a widely cited scholar of personality, and the author of whats currently the No. 1 best-selling nonfiction book on Amazon in the United States. The New York Timess David Brooks, echoing George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen, calls him the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now.

Jordan Peterson is also a right-wing internet celebrity who has claimed that feminists have an unconscious wish for brutal male domination, referred to developing nations as pits of catastrophe in a speech to a Dutch far-right group, and recently told a Times reporter that he supported enforced monogamy.

When Cathy Newman, a journalist for the UKs Channel 4, challenged Petersons arguments in a televised interview, she received so many death threats that she had to get help from the police. There were literally thousands of abusive tweets it was a semi-organized campaign, she recalled in an interview. It ranged from the usual cunt, bitch, dumb blonde to Im going to find out where you live and execute you.

This is not a case of mistaken identity, of two Jordan Petersons yoked to the same name. These seemingly distinct men, the accomplished scholar and the controversy-courting culture warrior, are one and the same, and their work is integrally interlinked. And that hybrid of scholarly air and provocative trolling has netted Peterson a huge following; he has 560,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 1 million YouTube subscribers.

Peterson introduces people [to] many many other things they just dont really get elsewhere, Cowen says. He is still influential, massively so, reaches a large general public audience of millions, most of all young males. How many other intellectuals do?

So how did an obscure Canadian psychologist become an international phenomenon?

The answer is that Jordan Peterson is tailor-made to our political moment. His reactionary politics and talents as a public speaker combine to be a perfect fit for YouTube and the right-wing media, where videos of conservatives destroying weak-minded liberals routinely go viral. Petersons denunciations of identity politics and political correctness are standard-issue conservative, but his academic credentials make his pronouncements feel much more authoritative than your replacement-level Fox News commentator. (I reached out to Peterson; a spokesperson turned down my interview request.)

Peterson is also particularly appealing to disaffected young men. Hes become a lifestyle guru for men and boys who feel displaced by a world where white male privilege is under attack; his new best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life, is explicitly pitched as a self-help manual, and he speaks emotionally of the impact his work has had on anxious, lost young men.

Jordan Peterson, then, isnt just some random professor who managed to strike it rich. Hes emblematic of the way white male anxiety is producing new and powerful political movements across the West today.

Peterson is both a clinical and research psychologist, meaning he sees patients while also doing research. After he received his PhD in psychology from McGill University, one of Canadas two most prestigious universities, in 1991, he spent two years practicing at McGills hospital. After that, he was hired by Harvard, where he taught until 1998. He left when the University of Toronto, Canadas other leading university, hired him as a full professor and a practicing clinician.

Petersons research specialty is personality traits; one of his most prominent papers is a study of what makes people more or less creative, where he argues that people who pay more attention to seemingly irrelevant details actually tend to be more creative. According to Google Scholar, he has been cited more than 10,000 times in academic publications and is one of the 70 most cited researchers in his subfield. I spoke to eight academic psychologists before writing this piece; the feedback I received on his published work was uniformly positive.

His work in personality assessment ... is very solid and well respected, says David Watson, a psychology professor at Notre Dame.

But this work, respected as it may be, has little to do with Petersons fame. His most influential research was published in the late 90s and early to mid-2000s; of his 20 most cited papers, only one came out after 2010. By contrast, his international celebrity as measured by worldwide Google searches for Jordan Peterson didnt start to rise until October 2016:

What happened in the fall of 2016 is that Peterson inserted himself into a national Canadian debate over transgender rights specifically by refusing to refer to a student by their chosen gender pronouns.

At the time, the Canadian parliament was considering something called Bill C-16, a bill banning discrimination against people on the basis of gender identity or gender expression. In September, Peterson released a series of YouTube videos attacking the bill as a grave threat to free speech rights. He said he would refuse to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns; separating gender and biological sex was, in his view, radically politically correct thinking. He argued that C-16 would lead to people like him being arrested.

If they fine me, I wont pay it. If they put me in jail, Ill go on a hunger strike. Im not doing this, Peterson said in an October 2016 TV interview. Im not using the words that other people require me to use. Especially if theyre made up by radical left-wing ideologues.

Experts on Canadian law said that Peterson was misreading the bill that the legal standard for hate speech would require something far worse, like saying transgender people should be killed, to qualify for legal punishment. This is an early example of what would become a hallmark of Petersons approach as a public intellectual taking inflammatory, somewhat misinformed stances on issues of public concern outside his area of expertise.

But it worked for him. Petersons videos on C-16 and political correctness racked up more than 400,000 views on YouTube within about a month of posting. There were rallies both for and against Peterson in Toronto; he made the rounds on Canadian television.

Perhaps the defining moment of this controversy was a filmed confrontation in October 2016 between Peterson and a group of student activists at the University of Toronto. In it, Peterson calmly fields questions from trans students who are angry about his refusal to recognize their gender identity. In the video, he turns the argument around on them suggesting that transgender activism, and the broader rise of political correctness, was bound to produce an ugly and dangerous backlash.

Ive studied Nazism for four decades. And I understand it very well. And I can tell you there are some awful people lurking in the corners, Peterson says. Theyre ready to come out. And if the radical left keeps pushing the way its pushing, theyre going to come.

Fans of Petersons worldview saw the video as proof of his genius and bravery; Peterson was the avatar of reason and facts pushing back against irrational social justice warriors (SJWs). One cut of the confrontation, titled Dr. Jordan Peterson gives up trying to reason with SJWs, currently has more than 3.5 million views on YouTube.

This was a seminal moment in the Peterson brand. It was proof that taking combative stances on camera especially arguments where youre set up to win, like a calm professor confronted by angry students would get you huge numbers of fans. There are now innumerable videos of Peterson arguing with various liberals and leftists on YouTube, with titles like Leftist Host SNAPS At Jordan Peterson, Instantly Regrets It. They have millions of views and have led to a massive surge in donations to Petersons personal account on the crowdfunding site Patreon. He currently earns around $80,000 per month from Patreon donations.

I shouldnt say this, but Im going to, because its just so goddamn funny I cant help but say it: Ive figured out how to monetize social justice warriors, Peterson told the podcast host Joe Rogan. If they let me speak, then I get to speak, and then I make more money on Patreon ... if they protest me, then that goes up on YouTube, and my Patreon account goes WAY up.

Petersons stellar academic credentials act as a sort of legitimizing device, a way of setting up his authority on politics and making his denunciations of leftist ideologues more credible and attractive to his fans. Combine his undeniable talents as a public speaker and debater with his ability to use YouTube to reach audiences around the world and you get a right-wing celebrity who has transcended Canada and become a global reactionary star.

Petersons political ideas are most cleanly laid out in a two-and-a-half-hour lecture hes given, titled Identity politics and the Marxist lie of white privilege. His upload of one of the speeches, at the University of British Columbia Free Speech Club, has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube, with other copies and excerpts from it racking up similarly large numbers.

In the lecture, Peterson weaves together an incredibly broad set of topics ranging from Soviet history to the biblical story of Cain and Abel to Nietzsche to lab experiments that involve feeding rats cocaine to produce a kind of unified theory of modern politics. At base, he argues that that Soviet-style communism, and all the mass murder and suffering it created, is still a serious threat to Western civilization. But rather than working openly, it seeps into our politics under the guise of postmodernism.

Petersons argument starts with a vivid denunciation of Marxism. Human society, like all animal kingdoms, is in Petersons mind defined by certain biological truths including the reality that some people are naturally more gifted than others, and that life will always involve suffering. Marxism, he believes, is rooted fundamentally in the hatred of people who succeed in a capitalist economy and thus will always result in violence when one attempts to implement it.

Are these Marxists motivated by love or hatred? Well, is it love or hatred that produces 100 million dead people? he asks in the speech, rhetorically.

Peterson believes that the failure of Soviet communism has not actually deterred communisms fans in the West, who still secretly cling to the old hateful beliefs. He argues that they do so under the guise of a school of thought he refers to as postmodernism, which he sees as his archenemy.

Western leftist intellectuals are [fundamentally complicit] in the horrors of the 21st century, he says. Its not that theyve learned anything since; theyve just gone underground. And thats what I see when I see postmodernism.

Peterson uses the term postmodernism fairly loosely, but hes referring to, roughly speaking, French philosophers working in the middle of the 20th century, most prominently Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault.

He argues that these philosophers, famous for their skepticism about objective reality and emphasis on the social construction of human society, were actually crypto-Marxists. The difference is that they change the language instead of arguing that society is defined by class oppression, Peterson says, they argue that its defined by identity oppression: racism, sexism, gender identity, and the like.

How about if we dont say working-class capitalists we say oppressor/oppressed? he says, summarizing the alleged postmodern line of thinking. Well just think about all of the other ways people are oppressed, and all the other ways that people are oppressors, and well play the same damn game under a new guise.

This makes postmodernism, which he believes has quietly permeated Western culture in the past 20 or so years, a tremendous threat.

The Marxists arent just wrong: Theyre wrong, murderous, and genocidal, he says. The postmodernists dont just get to just come along an adopt Marxism as a matter of sleight of hand because their Marxist theory didnt work out and they needed a rationalization, because its too dangerous its too dangerous to the rest of us.

Actual experts on postmodernism note that the thinkers Peterson likes to cite were often quite critical of Marxism. His reading of these thinkers, as the social critic Shuja Haider points out, is shallow and deeply uncharitable. Petersons fantasy of neo-Marxist wolves in postmodern sheeps clothing has little bearing on actual debates in 20th-century political theory, Haider concludes.

Petersons understanding of Marxism and postmodernism is very vulgar, Harrison Fluss, an editor at the Marxist journal Historical Materialism, tells me. He connects the two in [an] overarching conspiracy theory.

Perhaps more fundamentally, there is no evidence that 20th-century French thinkers have a dominant influence on any sector of the left in contemporary Western politics, let alone society as a whole. I know of no credible political scientist who believes this, and Petersons adherence to the notion can lead to bizarre outbursts. For example, he once accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of being in thrall to a murderous equity doctrine because Trudeau sent a tweet calling feminist activists inspiring and motivating.

But Petersons grand theory is brilliant as a political stance one designed to weaponize the grievances of the kind of young men attracted to the alt-right.

Petersons framework serves as a justification for dismissing the idea of any kind of privilege white, male, or otherwise as a tool used by closet Marxists to manipulate you. He states this explicitly, calling it a Marxist lie designed to enable the Marxist-postmodernist effort to seize control of the state.

[We cannot] allow people who are manipulating us with historical ignorance and philosophical sleight of hand to render us so goddamn guilty about what our ancestors may or may not have done, he argues, that we allow our shame and our guilt to be used as tools to manipulate us into accepting a future that we do not want to have.

This theory elevates battles over political correctness and free speech into existential struggles over Western society. He is very literally arguing that if the postmodernists win, if people start using others chosen pronouns, were one step closer to modern gulags.

Petersons position helps claim the mantle of facts and reason for the anti-PC right. Because postmodern theorists are skeptical about the notion of an entirely objective reality, Peterson argues, the entire project of identity politics is grounded in an irrational rejection of logic and discussion. Its not only right to reject identity politics; its a sign of irrationality not to.

Postmodernists dont believe in fact, as he put it in the lecture on white privilege and Marxism. They believe that the idea of fact is part of the power game thats played by the white-dominated male patriarchy to impose the tyrannical structure of the patriarchy on the oppressors.

These arguments are catnip for a very specific kind of young white man Peterson himself said in his Channel 4 interview that 80 percent of his YouTube audience is male. These young men are upset about the erosion of white male privilege, about the need to compete with women and minorities for jobs and spots at top universities, and they are angry about the way feminists and racial justice activists describe society.

In Peterson, they found someone telling them that their grievances are not only justified but, in fact, important: that they have picked up on a secret threat to society writ large, and that they are its first victims. Peterson is drawing on a deep well: This kind of anger about the declining social status of white men is incredibly common across the Western world today, and finds a comfortable home in reactionary political movements on both sides of the Atlantic.

The underlying mass-appeal of [Peterson] is that he gives white men permission to stop pretending that they care about other peoples grievances, writes Jesse Brown, host of the Canadaland podcast and a longtime Peterson watcher. He tells his fans that these so-called marginalized people are not really victims at all but are in fact aggressors, enemies, who must be shut down.

But Peterson isnt only giving these men an architecture in which to ground their frustrations. Hes also giving them a road map on how to succeed in a society they no longer understand.

Peterson became more than just an internet celebrity on January 23, 2018. Thats when his book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, was published by Random House Canada and skyrocketed to the top of international best-seller lists. It was after this books publication, and the following press tour, that David Brooks pronounced him the worlds most influential public intellectual.

Each chapter of the book is devoted to a specific, somewhat strange-sounding rule. The first chapter is called Stand up straight with your shoulders back; the last is Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

The book is a kind of bridge connecting his academic research on personality and his political punditry. In it, Peterson argues that the problem with society today is that too many people blame their lot in life on forces outside their control the patriarchy, for example. By taking responsibility for yourself, and following his rules, he says, you can make your own life better.

The first chapter, about posture, begins with an extended discussion of lobsters. Lobster society, inasmuch as it exists, is characterized by territoriality and displays of dominance. Lobsters that dominate these hierarchies have more authoritative body language; weaker ones try to make themselves look smaller and less threatening to more dominant ones.

Peterson argues that humans are very much like lobsters: Our hierarchies are determined by our behaviors. If you want to be happy and powerful, he says, you need to stand up straight:

If your posture is poor, for example if you slump, shoulders forward and rounded, chest tucked in, head down, looking small, defeated and ineffectual (protected, in theory, against attack from behind) then you will feel small, defeated, and ineffectual. The reactions of others will amplify that. People, like lobsters, size each other up, partly in consequence of stance. If you present yourself as defeated, then people will react to you as if you are losing. If you start to straighten up, then people will look at and treat you differently.

Look for your inspiration to the victorious lobster, with its 350 million years of practical wisdom. Stand up straight, with your shoulders back, he concludes, in one of the books most popular passages.

The lobster has become a sort of symbol of his; the tens of thousands of Peterson fans on his dedicated subreddit even refer to themselves as lobsters.

This is classic Peterson: He loves to take stylized facts about the animal kingdom and draw a one-to-one analogy to human behavior. It also has political implications: He argues that because we evolved from lower creatures like lobsters, we inherited dominance structures from them. Inequalities of various kinds arent wrong; theyre natural.

We were struggling for position before we had skin, or hands, or lungs, or bones, he writes. There is little more natural than culture. Dominance hierarchies are older than trees.

The relationship between human and lobster brains is outside Petersons area of academic expertise. Experts in the field who have evaluated his claims have found them lacking, as lobsters and humans neurological systems are radically different. One important distinction is that humans have brains and lobsters (technically speaking) do not.

If nervous systems were computer games, arthropods like lobsters would be Snake on a first-generation mobile phone and vertebrates would be an augmented reality (AR) game, as Leonor Gonsalves, a neuroscientist at University College London, puts it in a review of Petersons argument at The Conversation. The human brain is hugely malleable ... believing that it is natural that some people are losers because thats what lobsters do can have dire consequences.

But Petersonian lobster theory, and the other things like it in the book, arent really questions of truth. Theyre about providing the sort of alienated young men who are attracted to his broader work a sense of purpose and meaning. It fulfills roughly the same role in their life as religion might; its perhaps unsurprising that Peterson is quite interested in the Bible and discusses it often.

I think his mass following suggests the existence among a substantial cross-section of young men of a deep hunger for moral order that may well be ultimately a religious yearning, Yuval Levin, vice president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, tells me. Peterson is actually fairly careful to distinguish the teaching hes offering from an explicitly religious teaching, but I think he does that because he grasps that some significant portion of the people looking to him are really looking for something like a religious teacher.

The difference is that Peterson is reaching people who, for whatever reason, arent getting what they need from organized religion alone. In fact, some of his followers are actively hostile to religion, seeing it as fundamentally irrational. Hes a moralist who can appeal to the New Atheist set, even though he doesnt share their hostility to religion.

This aspect of Petersons work is far more sympathetic than his ill-informed and frankly nefarious politics especially since some of his cardinal rules, like tell the truth, are perfectly good moral precepts to live by.

Its worth watching a five-minute excerpt from a BBC interview about his role as a mentor for young men. Peterson openly starts to cry at the beginning:

Last night, I was at this talk I gave. And about a thousand people came, and about 500 of them stayed afterward. And most of them are young men, Peterson says, starting to tear up. And one of them after another comes up and shakes my hand and says, Ive been listening to what youve been saying ... I started cleaning up my room, and working on my life, and Ive started working hard on myself, and I just want to thank you for helping me.

When you watch this interview, you get a sense of what Peterson must have been like with his patients as a clinical psychologist empathetic, passionate, deeply concerned with the welfare of his patients. Its moving, really.

But Peterson has inextricably intertwined his self-help approach with a kind of reactionary politics that validates white, straight, and cisgender men at the expense of everyone else. He gives them a sense of purpose by, in part, tearing other people down by insisting that the world can and should revolve around them and their problems.

This painful contrast is on display later in that very interview, in which he explicitly argues that concern for sexism is to blame for the plight of the Wests young men.

Were so stupid. Were alienating young men. Were telling them that theyre patriarchal oppressors and denizens of rape culture, he says. Its awful. Its so destructive. Its so unnecessary. And its so sad.

The empathy that he displays for men and boys in his BBC interview and 12 Rules for Life is touching. The problem is that he cant seem to extend it to anyone else.

For more on Jordan Peterson, including a short interview with Peterson himself, listen to the May 14 episode of Today Explained.

Help us celebrate nine years of Vox

Since Vox launched in 2014, our audience has supported our mission in so many meaningful ways. More than 80,000 people have responded to requests to help with our reporting. Countless teachers have told us about how theyre using our work in their classroom. And in the three years since we launched the Vox Contributions program, tens of thousands of people have chipped in to help keep our unique work free. Were committed to keeping our work free for all who need it, because we believe that high-quality explanatory journalism is a public good. We cant rely on ads alone to do that. Will you help us keep Vox free for the next nine years by making a gift today?

Yes, I'll give $120/year

Yes, I'll give $120/year

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

Originally posted here:

Jordan Peterson, explained - Vox

UFC Champ Israel Adesanya Gives His Surprising Take On Masculinity, Lauds Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson: They Are the Ones Who Are Really Pushing Men to Be Accountable  EssentiallySports

Visit link:

UFC Champ Israel Adesanya Gives His Surprising Take On Masculinity, Lauds Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson: They Are the Ones Who Are Really Pushing Men...