Category Archives: Jordan Peterson

With its stately lamp and verdant window view, Hillary Clintons Zoom room is nicer than most. So when Room Rater a Twitter account which scores the video conference backgrounds of high-profile figures gave it nine out of 10 last spring, Clinton took her disappointment to social media: Ill keep striving for that highest, hardest glass ceiling, the elusive 10/10, she tweeted at the account.

Judging the backgrounds on video calls has been the armchair sport of the past year. Room Rater just happened to screengrab these moments. As we doomscrolled through bleak statistics online, it was cheering to see shots of Meryl Streeps sterile shelves or the copies of Fahrenheit 451 and The Twits propped up behind Boris Johnson at a school in Leicestershire. Scrolling through the posts today, these images are emblematic of just how quickly coronavirus forced us inside and online.

Room Rater is still going strong and today has almost 400k followers. It has slowed its output from about 40 rooms a day to four or five, but is now writing a guidebook of how to cultivate Zoom backgrounds for this new reality, says one of its co-founders, Claude Taylor. Some aspects of life are opening up, but many particularly video conferencing are here to stay. People ask if we are going to shut down the account when everyone is vaccinated and the answer is no, because this is the new normal.

Taylor created the account with his partner, Jessie Bahrey, last April. Taylor lives in Washington DC, Bahrey near Vancouver, and so, separated in lockdown, they would watch the news and judge the rooms of senators, some UK politicians, celebrities and the punditry class over the phone.

The idea was to entertain at a time when we all needed that sort of diversion, says Taylor. It quickly took off. Today, its standard practice for subjects, such as Clinton, to respond or even improve their backdrops at Room Raters behest. One very high-profile Republican senator was so miffed at getting a poor rating, their head of communications contacted the account to try to re-pitch the room to them.

Room Raters grading system is particular and partisan if youre an Obama or a liberal pundit, youll often score well. If youre a Cruz or a Trump, you wont. One Bernie Sanders appearance got a three, but the Vermont senator picked up a 10/10 for his much-memed inauguration look. There are points for good lighting, staircases and depth. Paintings are a big plus, as are books. Plants can bump a six to a nine, but too many can be seen as affectations.

Elsewhere, points are docked for bad lighting, bad angles and minor cord violations headphones, chargers, anything that gives the game away. You also need your camera at the right height. It just needs to be eye level. Thats the single most common mistake people make no one wants the nostril view, he says. The main issue with Hillary Clintons room was her depth, says Taylor. You need to be the right distance from the background wall. Clinton, it seems, was too close.

If Trump automatically gets zero, other celebrities are fair game. Lady Gagas ultra-minimalist backdrop scored her 2/10, while John Legend got 10/10 despite being largely blocked by a piano. Like Clinton, everyone seems to want to be rated. US pundits such as Steve Schmidt and John Heilemann are known for placing pineapple ornaments in shot to show they know theyre being watched by the account. (I call the pineapples, Room Rater calling cards, says Taylor).

Taylor runs the account on a six-year-old iPhone, doesnt have a laptop and is today speaking via his partners tablet, which is propped up on a cat perch. Lined up behind him is a photoseries of the Italian towns of Portofino, Rome and Venice. Hes too close to the wall and the lighting is terrible. We are not interior decorators, says Taylor. We just pretend to be on Twitter.

The optics are key, but theres a warm cattiness in the commentary. Occasionally, posts read like haikus. Love the port wine posters. Sunflowers. Depth. Add pillow to left. 9/10, says one. Sometimes, theyre more pragmatic: Cozy room, warm colours, animal art, but could use an updated paint job on the green wall. 6/10. Spiky entries loaded with expletives are reserved for Jordan Petersons clutter-laden den.

My own backdrop is disappointing. Peering into the screen, Taylor points out the earphones behind my head as a major cord violation. Having just moved flats, I have no art on the wall yet, but I remove the earphones and immediately go from a six to a seven. My daffodils get me an eight. With a framed piece, and something of whimsy such as kids art, I could be a nine. I prop up a postcard from my niece. What most people are lacking to score well is a piece of art. If youre on CNN for four minutes, just move the piece from the hallway.

Bookcases have, of course, become the background of choice for anyone cultivating their self-image. Taylor says he sees a copy of Robert Caros The Power Broker on every fifth backdrop in Washington DC. And if youre under 35 and a journalist, he says, you almost always own the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

Theyre biased towards anything mid-century modern, and tolerate Ikea. The only thing we avoid is colour-coded bookshelves as an aesthetic choice. We just dont rate the room, so its become a way of avoiding us.

Taylors political leanings bleed into his day-job running Mad Dog, a liberal political-action committee, and he is widely known for his anti-Trump output on social media and billboards. He used to be a low level White House staffer. I did the political merchandising on Bill Clintons campaign. I was the chief of stuff, he says. Bahrey, who is at work when we talk, manages a large-scale commercial greenhouse; big, meandering plants jump in and out of shot on the day we talk.

A self-appointed luddite, Taylor still understands the power of social media. A few months into the pandemic, Taylor and Bahrey used the account to raise funds from followers to buy surgical gloves and masks for hospitals in Bronx and Queens. Later, they did the same for Native American communities, who were among the hardest hit. They have produced Room Rater merch, the proceeds of which now go towards getting art supplies for kids not back at school.

Twitter following allows you to do stuff, it just depends how you use it, says Taylor. But its also, you know, public and entertaining. What people exclude in their backdrops is as important as what they include. Its a deliberate choice, what you show the world. At a time when our homes must function as a place to live but also be presentable to the outside world, its heartening to see the rich and famous struggling under their laundry, too.

Excerpt from:

A room with a view: the Twitter account that spent a year staring into peoples homes - The Guardian

The George Floyd trial has finally started in Minneapolis as if we needed any more drama in this country and the other channels are covering it like a championship game, which makes sense. If your job is to make Americans hate each other, if your job is to divide the country (and thats how they see their job), the opportunity to talk about George Floyd all day islike your Super Bowl.

On Monday morning, CNN spent hours airing footage of prosecutors questioning one of the emergency dispatchers who happened to be on duty the day that George Floyd died. It wasnt very interesting and had no inherent news value.Is that your voice on the 911 recording? the prosecutor asked at one point. Yes, the dispatcher replied,and so it went interminably. Thensuddenly, at one point, the feedstopped without warning. Apparently there were technical difficulties. It wasnt a conspiracy, it was just live TV programing.

But CNNs control room cut to a legal analyst who assured viewers the pause was only temporary. This isnt Law &Order,' the analyst explained. It wont all be wrapped up in fifty-five minutes. This could go on a while. In other words, stay in your seats. Dont turn away. The trial may be boring, but its important.

Its not about George Floyd, obviously; it never was. No one on CNN cared about George Floyd while he was alive. He was unemployed and on drugs. Like a lot of people in this country, they paid him no attention. For that matter, no one on CNN actually cares about George Floyd now. What they care about is you and your role in the systemic racism that supposedly killed George Floyd.

If the Floyd trial ends in acquittal, there could be riots. We accept that as a fact of life in this country. No civilized country should, but suddenly we do. If there are riots, innocent people may die, as they did in large numbers this summer. CNN will downplay those deaths or justify them as they did this summer andas they have so many times before when those deaths are politically convenient. The point isnt to save people from dying. The point is to punish you and to change America. So from that perspective, its worth it.

Thats why theyre replaying that video of George Floyd dying in the sidewalk, to remind you of your culpability in his death. Thats why, even as they rub the countrys face in the death of George Floyd, there are many other tragic deaths some on video they ignore completely.

BOTCHED CARJACKING VICTIM FLUNG TO HIS DEATH FROM CARE; TEENS CHARGED WITH MURDER: POLICE

Heres one:A 66-year-old Pakistani immigrant called Mohammad Anwar died in Washington recently. As in George Floyds case, Anwarsdeath was on video. Unlike George Floyd, Mohammad Anwar was not a violent career criminal with a drug habit. He worked at the very bottom of the so-called gig economy and made his living driving for Uber Eats. Its a tough gig. On Tuesday, he was driving near Nationals Park in southeast Washington when two girls assaulted him with a Taser. The girls were 13 and 15 years old. Mohammad Anwar resisted. It was his car,the key to his living, and he didnt want to lose it.Abystander recorded what happened next.

Anwars last words were, This is my car, and it was.Bystanders watchedall of this happen,but no one stepped forward to help Mohammad Anwar. The two girls hit the gas, flipping the carover. Anwarflew out of the vehicle andlanded face down on the sidewalk, dead. The girls who killed him didnt seem bothered by this.

My phone is in there!My phone! one of them screamed. She cared more about her phone than the life of the man she just killed. This raises all kinds of questions, not only about them, but about us. What kind of society produced children like this? Who raised them? What does it say about our country that no one jumped in to help this poor man before he was killed?

Those are real questions, but CNN wasnt interested in asking any of them. In fact, the network refused even to call it a killing, since didnt help their politics. So in their account, the girls assaulted an Uber driver with a Taser while carjacking him, which led to an accident in which he was fatally injured.

CNN SLAMMED FOR QUESTIONABLE TWEET THAT REFERS TO MURDER AS ACCIDENT

Which led to an accident.It wasnt a killing. It just kind of happened. It was an act of God, like a tsunami or a hailstorm. Unfortunately, he died. In fact, as the mayor of Washington, D.C., explained the next day, it may have been Mohammad Anwars fault. Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a tweet reminding her subjects to pay attention to their surroundings the next time they go outside.

Auto theft is a crime of opportunity, Bowser wrote. Follow these steps to reduce the risk of your vehicle becoming a target. Those tips included locking your car and not walking away as the engine is running.

Got that, D.C. residents? Staying safe is your job. Its not the job of the mayor you hired to protect you and who sits barricaded in her home, surrounded by a massive security detail you pay for as the city shes supposed to protect descends into chaos. No, its up to you. Youre on your own. Follow these steps to reduce the risk. Not surprisingly, carjackings are up all over the city, and if you know people who live there, they will tell you that. Neighborhoods that were safe last year, arent anymore. There are carjackings going on in residential neighborhoods, a 300% rise over one year, in fact.Shootings,robberies and theft are rising, too. Of course they are. Washington is becoming a scary place again. The capital of our country was also its murder capital in the 1980s. Thats not acceptable for a civilized country, but its becoming that way again.

Why is this happening? We dont have to guess. Its very simple. Last summer, the D.C. City Council voted to cut $15 millionfrom the police budget. It devastated the police department. Theyre basically not recruiting cops right now. There is but one class left at the police academy and massive retirements from the police department. If it continues at this rate, there wont be police in Washington in a few years.

DC MAYOR TAKES HEAT FOR SHARING PREVENTING AUTO THEFTS VIDEO AMID SILENCE ON MOHAMMAD ANWARS DEATH

So what happens when you do something like this? Like clockwork, six months after they defunded the police department, Washington, D.C., recorded its highest murder rate in 15 years. When you defund the police, people die. That happens every single time. And thats why Mayor Muriel Bowsermust surround herself with cops. She doesnt want to get hurt, though she doesnt care if you do.

Its a very simple lesson, and everyone knows its true. Thats why we have cops in the first place. Theyve never really gotten credit for the gravest policy screw-up maybe in living memory. They defunded the police across the country, and our leaders are ignoring the consequences. Some places are doubling down. In Baltimore, for example, acity that does not need more tragedy, officials have announced they will no longer prosecute what they call low-level offenses,including drug possession and prostitution.

Whats low-level, exactly?That kind of depends on where you live and how much police protection you have. Prostitution and drugs arent a big deal if theyre not near you. However,when your kids cant go outside because prostitution and drug possessionare taking place right outside your house, theyre not low-level crimes. They wreck your life. The people who run Baltimore dont care about this. They have no interest whatsoever in what is happening outside your house. So the mayor of Baltimore andthe local prosecutor, recently sent a press release describing this policy as a success because it reduced systemic inequity. By the way, it also led to lower arrests. Imagine that?

So Baltimore has equity now. What a relief. Many of us are hoping Baltimore will have more equity. What does that look like? Last week, Baltimore recorded seven murders in six days. Thats a killing every day of the week, plustwo on Saturday. Thats deeply equitable and its happening in cities across the country. Once again, no ones noticing this, but if you live in one, you well know whats happening.

BALTIMORE GROCERY STORE SHOOTING LEAVES TWO DEAD, ONE HURT

In Chicago, for example, the George Soros-funded states attorney, a hard-left ideologue named Kim Foxxstopped prosecuting what she called low-level crimes. Last year, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfootmayor called for an $80 millionreduction in the police budget. What happened next? Can you guess? Have you read thisstory before? Oh, yeah. By January, Chicagos carjacking problem looked like (wait for it)Washington D.C.s.

Through mid-March, more than 370 carjackings had been reported in Chicago, the most the city has seen in a three-month period in at least 20 years, maybe much longer.

But its not just Chicago. This is happening everywhere is we advance toward a full year of mourningthe death of a single man on the sidewalk in Minneapolis. Thousands of Americans have been murdered thanks to the policy changes justified by the death of that man. Ponder that for a minute. Has there ever been a more perverse moment in this country?

Its not clear what we can do about it, but you can start by telling the truth out loud. According to The Washington Examiner, the murder rate in virtually every city in the United States is at its highest levels in more than two decades. Last year, there were more homicides in the United States than in any year since 1998. How did that happen? Oh, BLM. Thanks, BLM. BLM did this to us whilethe people who are funding them were posturing about how great they are and how this is going to make America more equitable. Poor people were paying the price with their lives. No one has admitted this, no one is accepting responsibility for it,and no one has been punished for it.

Irony of ironies, few places are more dangerous than the actual physical place where George Floyd died in Minneapolis.

None of this is getting better, by the way. Its getting worse. Still, no one has asked the most basic question: Why is this happening? Its not all political. The 13 and 15-year-old girls who killed the Pakistani Uber Eats driver werent acting out of political solidarity with anybody. What is that exactly? Why do people do that?

Jordan Peterson sent a very interesting tweet out the other day,just a simple graph ofthe out-of-wedlock birth rate. Among African-Americans, it was 70%. So if you took the out of wedlock birthrate, broke it down by demographic group, and put it next to the crime rate, one thing you notice they track exactly or close enough to suggest a profound connection.

Why is no one interested in pursuing that? No one even asks why this is happening. Youre not supposed tosee how Mohammad Anwar died. Instead, youre supposed to watch endless loops of video of the death of GeorgeFloyd so you can tell yourself its all one bad cop or its all systemic racism.

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But if you look away from the propaganda and you look toward the reality of whats happening to your country on the streets ofWashington or Chicago orMinneapolis, you might have a few questionsfor the people in power. Theyre the ones who created this society. Theyre the ones responsible, and thats exactly the conversation they dont want to have.

So they tell you much more about George Floyd. Watch the 911 dispatcher testify some more. Just dont change the channel.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlsons opening commentary on the March 29, 2020 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight

Link:

Tucker Carlson: Unsafe cities, divisive mainstream media the real legacy of George Floyd's death - Home - WSFX

Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

Jordan B. Peterson

Allen Lane,, pp. 432, 25

Like most novelists, I am a firm adherent to the W.H. Davies principle of finding time to stand and stare. I was once sauntering down Regent Street when a gentleman hared out of a department store, closely followed by two rather healthier specimens. They flung him to the ground, upon which large quantities of merchandise started falling from his pockets. I was fascinated, both by the level of violence the shops security was using and by what a captured thief actually says when hes being subdued. (Clue: not You got me bang to rights.) After a moment or two another bloke came over to me and a couple of others gawping on the public pavement. Move along there, he said. Theres nothing for you to see here. I replied as anyone would when a stranger starts ordering you around: Who the bleeding hell are you?

The same question came to mind when reading Beyond Order. Jordan B. Peterson published the successful 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos a couple of years ago, quite no-nonsense in tone. Stand up straight with your shoulders back was number one; Tell the truth number eight. Now he presents us with 12 more rules. Are these self-help books? And before we start listening seriously to someone telling us to Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible, lets look at Peterson. Why should we follow his rules for life rather than those of Bimini Bon Boulash?

Peterson had been leading a blameless life in the groves of Canadian academe until, in 2016, the Canadian parliament passed a law prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Many transgender people, as well as those unwilling to conform to gender stereotypes, think its important to be able to choose the pronouns they use. Peterson, though acknowledging that it would be jolly rude to refer to Jan Morris, say, as he, questioned the proliferation of invented non-binary pronouns, such as zie and per, the rather ungrammatical codification of the singular they and, most importantly, what the merry hell parliament was doing trying to control peoples speech in this regard. His haranguing of a weedy mob on campus quickly became a YouTube favourite. A richly amusing debate on local television followed in which a colleague of Petersons demonstrated just how absurd the proposals were:

Heres a great little tip for people who are despairing at the possibility of remembering all those pronouns. What I do is programme in the persons pronoun next to the persons name in my smartphone. So whenever Im out and about, and Ive forgotten whether one of my transgender friends uses zie or zer or they and them or something else, I just look it up and its really super-easy.

As with all attempts to engineer linguistic usage, the appropriate response is what Regina George might say to Gretchen Wiener in Mean Girls: Gretchen! Stop trying to make zie happen. Its Not. Going. To. Happen.

If only we could all have such opponents in a debate, you might think. Peterson went on to build his sudden fame into worldwide celebrity, putting talks about all manner of things on YouTube and engaging in enjoyably robust exchanges with intelligently flabbergasted journalists I recommend an interview with the excellent Cathy Newman, in which both appear to be enjoying themselves a good deal. (Death threats followed, however.)

Peterson though rarely coming out with anything much that would be thought objectionable, rather than worth discussing is now a sort of bogeyman for millennials to scare each other with. When Penguin Random House Canada announced that it was publishing this book, a general meeting of employees was held. As reported by Vice website: People were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives. [One employee] talked about how publishing the book will negatively affect their non-binary friend. You may find this amusing, or you may wonder whether the book you yourself are writing is going to have to be approved in advance, without being read, by the non-binary friends of junior employees of your publisher.

Anyway, here is the book itself, which, unlike the weeping juveniles, I happen to have read. It is pretty odd, I must say. The rules are quite old-fashioned Canadian Presbyterian in tone. Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement. Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens. Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship.

How is this going to work in practice? Petersons readers, surely, are drawn from the class of persons who are already firmly convinced about social order, hard work, hierarchy, tradition and so on. They arent likely to need his book unless they are planning to give itin a passive-aggressive way to their non-gender-conforming snowflake children.

The fact is that this is not really a self-help book at all. Cunningly disguised, it is a Savonarola-like jeremiad about things going to the dogs. If you dont do what Peterson says

Then you will come to curse man, reality and God himself for producing such an impenetrable maze of impediments and barriers. Corruption will beckon to you, led as you increasingly will be by dark, unexamined motivations. This will impoverish your life, your community, your nation, and the world. This will in turn impoverish Being itself.

On the other hand, things might go on much as before, one suspects.

This is a genuinely frustrating book. I wish, for instance, that the positions Peterson chooses to pick a fight with were better documented, rather than (quite often) the beliefs he imagines his opponents to hold. He goes to the Met in New York and looks at a painting (a little digging suggests hes talking about a Guido Reni.) There are people looking at it. I thought They do not know what that painting means. They do not understand the symbolic meaning of the mandorla. How does he know? It might have been an outing for a bunch of Guido Reni scholars.

More worryingly, there is a tale of a client of Petersons whose employer is said to have banned the use of the word flipchart on the grounds that it might be derogatory to Filipino employees, once insultingly known as Flips. I just dont believe this story. The racial slur is quite unknown to the OED, and any investigation of the new taboo placed on flipchart, including the source which Peterson cites, only turns up conservative voices bemoaning the ludicrousness of any ban. Of course there are cases of people objecting to words apparently close to racial slurs but etymologically distinct black students have complained about their professors using the word niggardly. But you need to be very sure of your ground here, both of the facts and that the choice of usage was genuinely innocent unlike a former colleague of mine who used to enjoy telling me that he was looking forward to eating faggots and peas for his dinner. The flipchart story, as so much here, just looks a lot like projection.

As an old-fashioned liberal, I ought to be on Petersons side: the defence of free speech against official or mob control; the injunctions to read and listen to other people, especially those who know what theyre talking about. But he makes it so hard. For one thing, he writes terribly badly:

This variance in ability (as well as the multiplicity of extant problems and the impossibility of training everyone in all skilled domains) necessarily engenders a hierarchical structure based ideally on genuine competence in relation to the goal.

His evidence too often looks constructed for his own convenience, or conjured out of some frankly weird readings of Harry Potter and Disney movies; and he is apparently totally lacking in humour.

The moment, however, when I really started to wonder whether I wanted his guidance about how to live was when, advising us on how important it is to make one room in your house beautiful, he describes his own. In his living room, no more than 12ft square, he hangs

some large paintings... Soviet realist/impressionist pieces, some illustrating the second world war, some representing the triumph of communism. There was even one... on the ceiling, where I had attached it with magnets.

Maybe not.

Here is the original post:

Jordan Peterson is the Savonarola of our times - Spectator.co.uk

Billionaire Elon Musk could be interviewed by Jordan Peterson, the controversial critic of political correctness. The two appear to have set up a sit-in on Petersons YouTube talk show.

Peterson asked Musk on Friday if he would be a guest on his program, to which the entrepreneur responded: What would you like to talk about? Musk suggested that the conversation could be about Life, the Universe and Everything, citing the title of an iconic book by science fiction writer Douglas Adams, so one assumes the number 42 may come up in the discussion.

Its unclear if the exchange will lead to an actual interview, but the proposal definitely made many people excited.

Musk, who currently holds the title of the wealthiest person in the world, is known for his extensive footprint on social media and swift embrace of unconventional public moves. For example, at the peak of the scandal involving amateur investors on Reddit going after Wall Street short sellers, Musk invited the CEO of RobinHood an app that drew much hatred for seemingly undercutting the small guy and siding with the big financial players in the situation for a surprise interview,

Peterson, a Canadian psychology professor, made his name by going against the woke trends in academia and elsewhere and championing conservative values. He is a bestselling author and has a significant fan following online.

Critics accuse him of fostering hatred toward minorities and catering to far-right extremism for actions like opposing policing the use of preferred gender pronouns for transgender people and speaking about a crisis of masculinity in the West.

Among his recent guests was Abigail Shrier, the author of the book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, which got pushed out from some major bookseller shops by activists accusing it of promoting transphobia.

If you like this story, share it with a friend!

The rest is here:

Elon Musk offers Jordan Peterson discussion on Life, the Universe and Everything after invitation to talk - RT

The scandal broke in The Wall Street Journal, two and a half years ago. Three self-described "left-leaning liberals" had fooled feminist and gender studies journals to accept a number of absurd and horrific hoax papers for publication. One paper was billed as a rewrite of a chapter from Hitlers "Mein Kampf," but using feminist theory.

Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckroses endeavors were praised in some quarters as an essential satire of fashionable jargon and theories, and a brave expose of academic journals openness to publishing "intellectually vacuous as well as morally troubling bullshit," as Yascha Mounk put it.

Others slammed the authors hoaxes as mean-spirited attacks on leftist scholarship; 11 of Boghossians Portland State colleagues described them as "fraudulent, time-wasting, anti-intellectual." When Boghossians university opened an ethics investigation against him, Jordan Peterson (of intellectual dark web infamy) declared only Boghossians critics could be accused of "academic misconduct"and not the philosophy professor himself.

What is clear is that the hoax and its controversy propelled Boghossian and his co-writers into the media limelight, big time, with multiple article in the mainstream press and a particularly warm welcome from right-leaning platforms: Dave Rubins show The Rubin Report and Petersons own YouTube channel, but also from more centrist outlets like Joe Rogans podcast.

Boghossian deepened his longstanding allyship with right-wing provocateur, Andy Ngo, and won a phalanx of new fans from Richard Dawkins to Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan to Megyn Kelly.

But did the trio really demonstrate that contemporary academia is receptive to an "intersectional 'Mein Kampf'"? What did the stunt actually prove? What were the underlying motivations of the hoaxers, and the conservative media stars who embraced them so eagerly? What light does this saga throw on todays culture wars and the so-called "anti-wokeness" and cancel culture campaigns? Whom did the three writers really hoax?

Let's go back to the stated aims of the three writers themselves.

Inspired by physicist Alan Sokals famous 1996 hoax paper in the journal Social Text,these "concerned academics" saw themselves as critiquing "an ongoing problem we see in gender studies and related academic disciplines," a problem they name as "grievance studies": the effort to inflame the grievances of "certain identity groups" on subjects such as race, gender and sexuality.

Their aim was, they claimed, to "reboot" the academic conversation, to "reintroduce scepticism" about core assumptions, and provide a safe space to challenge the "increasing power of grievance scholars."

Over a period of 10 months, they wrote 20 papers: seven were accepted for publication, and four were published.

To excavate the controversy, and as a historian studying Hitler, and, I've chosen to drill down into one of the hoax articles: "Our Struggle is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice Feminism," the piece flagged by the WSJ as based on "Mein Kampf."

It was sent to the journal Feminist Theory but was rejected; it was accepted by Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work in the fall of 2018, but never actually published. On The Rubin Report, James Lindsay airily hypothesized that it was "probably days away from actually being published when the WSJ broke their story."

Clearly, the idea that an article based on "Mein Kampf" could be published in a serious scientific journal is certainly an appalling prospect and generates instinctive outrage. So let's dig a bit deeper: What does "based on 'Mein Kampf'" actually mean?

First and foremost, the source material. The chapter the hoaxers chose, not by coincidence, one of the least ideological and racist parts of Hitler's book. Chapter 12, probably written in April/May 1925, deals with how the newly refounded NSDAP should rebuild as a party and amplify its program.

According to their own account, the writers took parts of the chapter and inserted feminist "buzzwords"; they "significantly changed" the "original wording and intent of the text to make the paper "publishable and about feminism." An observant reader might ask: what could possibly remain of any Nazi content after that? But no one in the media, apparently, did.

Indeed, in public, the trio constantly downplayed the amount of re-writing they did to the original text. On Joe Rogans podcast in October 2018, Lindsay described how they'd "modified the words and added theory around it so that it would fly," and in another interview explained that this was to "get past plagiarism."

Chapter 12, he noted, included sentences like: "This is why we need the Nazi Party, and [this is] what is expected of people who are going to be part of it." What did they change? "We took that out [the Nazi party reference] and replaced it with intersectional feminism." What's left is an entirely anodyne sentence, stripped of any identifiable Nazi vestiges. Hardly "owning the grievance warriors."

So what did the text in the article accepted by Affilia actually look like? Was it, as Fox News claimed, a "feminist Mein Kampf", suggesting men should be treated the same way as Hitler victimized Jews?

It is surprising, to say the least, that none of the journalists reporting on the controversy actually bothered to compare the two texts. If they'd done so, they would have found that the Affilia article didn't contain anything that could be recognized as "Mein Kampf" even by a Hitler expert, let alone a lay person.

The best way to illustrate this is to highlight a section of what remained of Hitler's text, spread out as it was over several paragraphs on several pages:

[] to appeal to [] contented and satisfied, [] to embrace [].

[] half-measures, by [] a so-called objective standpoint, [] the goal []. That is to say, [] in the sense [] many limitations, []. [] countered only by an antidote, [] only the []. [] people [] neither [] nor []. [] abstract knowledge [] directs their []. [] is where their [] lies. [] receptive [] in one of these two directions [] never to a [] between the two.

[] emotional [] stability. [] than respect, [] is more [] than aversion, [] weakness) [], [] will [] power.

The future of a movement is [].

The lacunae between these preserved pieces of text were filled with material that was either re-written, or entirely new (including references to bona fide scholarship). This created the convincing illusion of an original philosophy paper. Neither the words nor the intent were comparable to "Mein Kampf"; indeed, the intent was the very opposite.

If the idea was to showcase the 'absurdity' of feminist theory, and the ideology-fueled laxity of editors, why didnt they choose to work from a much more ideological or racist part of "Mein Kampf," say chapter 11: Volk und Rasse ("People and Race") instead? Well, Lindsay told Rubin, revealingly, it was "too extreme" to be useful.

If the point of the experiment was to prove that radical theory was so unhinged it could pass as Nazism, they failed. If the point was to hoodwink a feminist journal to run "Mein Kampf" dressed up as feminist theory, but denatured the text to be unrecognizable from the original, then they didnt prove their contention at all. What they did prove was that there are workaday sentences with nouns and verbs and adjectives in "Mein Kampf" that can be repurposed.

Ironically, the figure whose 1996 hoax inspired the "Mein Kampf" stunt, Alan Sokal, was lukewarm on whether the later hoax had actually proved anything of importance, precisely because the authors had gone so far out of their way to mask their core contention in order to get published. He noted in a 2019 interview that the problem with the grievance studies hoax "may be that the authors did too good of a job of imitating the style of other articles in the field. In which case the articles [] wouldnt prove much of anything."

In fact, the trio wrote two articles based on "Mein Kampf." In one of them they claimed ) to have "essentially" just replaced references to "Jews" with "white men," although their own fact sheet states the article was a more comprehensive "rewrite": they exchanged "Jews" with "white people" or "whiteness," and "added plenty of jargon and critical race theory."

Why didn't this article get any media traction? Because it was never accepted by any journal, let alone published. That failure meant two out of three journals chose to reject "Mein Kampf" articles.

Nevertheless, the trio's stunts garnered them enormous attention. Besides Rogan and Rubin, they were interviewed by Jordan Peterson (at the time at the pinnacle of his fame), and their results spread through largely uncritical reporting in leading newspapers all over the world.

Riffing off Lindsay's framing, an op-ed in The New York Times falsely claimed that not only had the "Mein Kampf" piece been published, but that they had "simply scattered some up-to-date jargon into passages lifted from Hitlers 'Mein Kampf'"; in The Washington Post, an op-ed incorrectly stated that it "was literally a partial chapter of 'Mein Kampf' rewritten using womens studies buzzwords."

Right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro called the stunt "genius" and asked, unself-consciously, when "true power" would be restored to educators not engaged in "navel-gazing mental masturbation and toward a renewed intellectual search for knowledge."

The online magazine Quilletteoffered a prcis of the scandal that indicated its self-appointed status as savior of free speech wasn't bothered by obvious factual inaccuracies, stating that all seven papers had actually been published (false), one included a 3000 word excerpt from "Mein Kampf" (false) and that the latter had been published in Affilia(false).

But it was in Sweden that perhaps the most egregious write-up appeared. The country's second largest daily newspaper, the liberal Svenska Dagbladet, featured an editorial headlined, "The Feminazis at Our Universities," and it went downhill from there.

Editorial staff writer Ivar Arpi didn't bother to fact-check his claims about the Mein Kampf piece, regurgitating the same mistakes as Quillette, and then claimed the article accepted by Affilia was nothing less than "feminazism, literally."

"Feminazi" was the go-to slur for feminists coined by right-wing Christian shock-jock Rush Limbaugh back in the 1980s but its use in a Swedish newspaper was shocking and extreme; no other news outlet in the world (not even Fox News) used "feminazi" in connection with the hoax. Arpi, however, brought the term into mainstream, liberal parlance as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Perhaps Arpi's foul language was a harbinger of Sweden's growing anti-feminist backlash. A poll last month showed 41 percent of Swedes somewhat agreed with the statement: "It is feminisms fault that some men feel at the margins of society and demonized," the highest rates among eight European countries surveyed. According to Nick Lowles, chief executive of the anti-racist group HOPE not Hate, that anti-feminism is "wrapped up in the growing right-wing culture wars" and exhibits increasingly aggressive, even violent, rhetoric.

Feminism and gender studies are in the crosshairs of neo-fascism, and Sweden just so happens to have the worlds largest far-right party, the Sweden Democrats, formed by ex neo-Nazis, and one actual Nazi (an SS volunteer on the Eastern Front in WWII). The party won no less than 17.5 percent of the popular vote in the country's 2018 general election.

The "Mein Kampf" hoax itself is embedded within these wider culture wars, and is revealing about their dynamics and the strange-looking self-declared liberals-and-right-wing alliance pushing so much of the outrage machine.

That is best seen in the hoaxers own parsing of their stunt as they bathed in the glow of right-wing adoration. It had a far cruder, nastier edge, and goes to the heart of why the trio so deliberately chose "Mein Kampf" to "expose" the left.

On the Rubin Report, Lindsay offered an explicit analogy between "Mein Kampf" and so-called leftist "grievance studies": He claimed that Hitler, too, "was pushing the politics of grievance."

Perhaps Lindsay thought this was the winning tell of the whole endeavor. But it resembles far more what philosopher Daniel Dennett calls "pseudo-profound bullshit": To the extent it is true, it is trivial to the extent it is not trivial, it isnt true. All politics is based on some form of grievances; that is why we engage in political struggles in the first place: to correct a perceived wrong in the world.

Ironically, the trios whole stunt was based on their grievances towards "intersectional feminism" and gender studies; so are their grievances also the same as Hitlers? Of course not. Hitlers grievances and feminist grievances are not the same, and it is absurd to claim that they are. They are fundamentally different in every possible way except for them being termed "grievances."

This ludicrous equivocation does, though, illustrate just how widespread the relativization of Nazism and its crimes has become, and the nave ease with which it is being spread by people who are far from being fascist themselves.

To imply in any way that feminism and Nazism can be put on the same footing is a reductio ad absurdum: to relativize the atrocities of Hitlers regime. The right-wing media constantly replays the same equivalence dynamic, comparing cancelled events on campus, sanctioning platforms publishing threats of violence or just losing followers on Twitter as Nazism, Kristallnacht or the Holocaust.

But the use of the Hitler analogy is also intended to valorize the current-day "victims" of the so-called "feminazis" conservatives, Trump supporters, the "anti-woke" and their self-declared liberal fellow travelers. They are now framed as the "Jews," the victims of a totalitarian left which, not coincidentally at all, is often equated by the right-wing fringe to Nazism (the "National Socialists were socialists" idiocy.) Much of the outrage at this ravenous but nebulous "left" has now transitioned from attacking feminist theory to the all-encompassing bugbear of "critical race theory."

All this, despite the evidence of the real world where the right-wing was just in power, where in 2020 the GOP won nearly 47 percent of U.S. votes, where conservative churches, universities and think tanks are as solid as ever, and where an enormous and influential right-wing media ecosystem thrives a fact hardly peripheral to the careers of Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson themselves.

So, what did the "Mein Kampf" articles actually prove? Ironically, they showed that the journals they targeted rejected both of their papers; only after major revisions to one of the texts and after having been emptied of all traces of Nazi ideology and no longer had any resemblance to "Mein Kampf" did they manage to get it accepted.

If anything, it proved a remarkable resilience on the part of these journals to withstand pseudo-scientific bullshit. Moreover, the article Affilia accepted was a philosophical paper not premised on outrageously obvious forged data, as some of the other articles did. The fact that they managed to fool some reviewers with fraudulent content, and in some cases fabricated data, is not exactly earth-shattering news.

As Science reported, by late October 2018 more than 18,000 papers have been retracted by peer-review journals since the 1970s, about 60 percent due to fraud. The problem is arguably much bigger in the natural sciences than in the humanities and social sciences. Yet, we dont see Boghossian, Lindsay and Pluckrose berating natural science journals for publishing bad science.

When Inside Edition featured an experiment where a comedian read Hitler quotes to Trump supporters, who were told they were from his speeches - and most agreed with the statements. The prankster didnt even tweak the quotes.

That didnt demonstrate that Trump supporters were Nazis, but that people are naturally gullible and suggestable, and will accept a persons framing (especially if it comes from an academic or a friendly journalist) unless they have strong reasons not to, or information that contradicts it. The same is true in this case; reviewers assume that their peers dont brazenly lie and fabricate content for the sake of an ideological prank.

No, the campaigns against gender studies, the study of racism and "intersectional feminism," and the gleeful efforts to humiliate other academics has nothing to do with a wish to preserve the integrity of science; it is an ideological and political crusade against an entire field of science simply because of its connection to feminism, social justice, and the fight for equality. Dont be fooled by it.

Mikael Nilsson is an historian based in Stockholm, Sweden, specializing in Hitler and National Socialism. His latest book is "Hitler Redux: The Incredible History of Hitlers So-Called Table Talks" (Routledge, 2020). Twitter:@ars_gravitatis

Read the rest here:

'Mein Kampf' and the 'feminazis': What three academics' Hitler hoax really reveals about 'wokeness' - Haaretz

In the past, or, to put it more directly, back when I wasnt even an idea, the internet was an expansive canvas for people to use as a tool to reach and talk to others. This includes early precursors to some of our greatest areas of interest resided in technology across the World Wide Web. Many facets that reside on the internet platform include but arent limited to social networking and dating sites, stock prices, banking information and even games on sites that will age me like Poptropica, Webkinz and AddictingGames.com.

The internet was a haven, so to speak, for many to use, young and old generations alike, to engage and interact with the many facets of life that were once deemed only reachable in person. While nowadays we are more cognizant of the internet now that we can use it in more ways than ever before, 20-30 years ago things were looking up for the internet. Now, Im a bit worried about the current state of the internet. Granted, the internet still acts as a platform for good in this world with social causes and awareness campaigns for many to give relief for causes like the Australian fires to racial injustice, but Im still wary about what the internet has indirectly caused.

With our increased hours inside, increased tensions have been dispersed between people of all walks of life for issues big and small from topics in politics to Dr. Seuss of all things. I wont talk about those specifically here because unlike a number of people on the internet, Ill admit I know nothing about those topics and dont wanna waste time on matters I dont see in my control directly. What I want to bring up is the debate currently pertaining to if the internet currently in 2021 is used entirely for the right reasons.

Some aspects that we know of now are definitely looked at under tinted glasses, as when the WWW was invented decades ago issues such as cyberbullying, cybercrime, dark/deep web fostering and other issues werent known of back in the 80s and 90s. I get concerned when sometimes the internet and even social media work around the loudest voices first rather than the right ones. For instance, its because of the internet rather than news and newspapers of the past that many of us know figures on YouTube and celebrities from the likes of Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, the Paul brothers and others with eccentric personalities over people in high positions in science or industry. Figures like those aforementioned have garnered within themselves a cult of personality within themselves with their audience being across many different demographics across each of them (i.e such as the unethical and frankly loud former Disney stars and former Ohioans Logan and Jake Paul catching eyes of many pre-teens despite their adverse content against decency). Im not saying we are at fault for this (completely at least), but the internet creates correlations across figures like Alex Jones and the Paul brothers or entertainers like Daniel Tekashi 6ix9ine Hernandez for what they represent and are a part of. As a result, platforms like YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud and other platforms that carry hip-hop or music took some hits from their connection to these people by proxy whenever a bad story came from the resolute celebrity/entertainer.

Im all for free speech as a former stand-up comic as it adheres to not promoting violence and hatred. Im against blatant hatred and verbal abuse that the internet has overseen a great deal of over the past. Its frankly very poor how the internet has tried to mitigate such actions as someone who is a part of the sometimes volatile online gaming and YouTube community.

The problem isnt going away anytime soon with one-fifth of kids being bullied happens on social media and 59 percent of teens stating theyve experienced it, per a 2018 survey. If you want to look into some cases as to how this all happens, you can check out and read about six cyberbullying cases here as these only account for the stories that were told and investigated, with many others who havent been looked into as the stigma around mental health persists in many. The veil the internet provides allows people to say the most venomous and flagrant things to complete strangers sometimes, and it is appalling to me that this is still going on and the best people can give in terms of advice is to walk it off. Its never that easy sometimes, as some people I know have had long-term effects from this mantra and from constant cyberbullying.

Other issues pertaining to other matters are kids seeing inappropriate content on accident or without merit on commercial platforms like YouTube and Facebook, a matter that caught even more fire after the rise of OnlyFans and inappropriate content on the former from the exploitative to the abusive. Part of me wants to place blame on the internet but also its up to the parents to not raise them with ample amounts of technology in contrast to face-to-face engagement, but thats just what I think and other studies back up. In short, the internet should provide more motions toward stopping radicals from cultivating online through their capabilities, minimize cyberbullying activity across its widespread coverage space and above all mitigate the amount of damage that some cultivated figures can do thanks to the internets services and ability to push what is shared rather than whats right.

Regulating the internet via the government has many caveats to it, as worry may arise in how much they regulate it and what may be censored potentially. Some would say that current organizations trying to regulate content are inhibiting its content creators such as YouTube, Spotify and Twitch, but those can be solved on a more direct level with them instead of a slower government-based process. What I want is for the derived parties on the internet to take ownership of its faults within its platform that used to be completely safe and sound and now resembles, in some areas, a wasteland of what it used to be and hold.

Gregory Hess is an opinion writer. Contact him at ghess5@kent.edu.

Excerpt from:

OPINION: Should the internet be regulated for our and others' own safety? - Kent Wired

We all, at times, come across a certain version of an angel.

Those who carry great burdens with grace.

And in so doing, remind us that such is one of lifes secrets.

To me, Marita Loffredo, gone too soon a few weeks ago, will always be among them.

We met four years ago, at an outdoor table at the Starbucks in Providence's Wayland Square. I could not help but notice her hands. They were twisted like those of the elderly after arthritis.

Except Marita was only 52.

But that smile.

The hands were not her only burden.

She wore nasal tubes for oxygen, then laughed and said the attached tank was like American Express.

I never leave home without it.

More: Mark Patinkin: With borders closed, a father wistfully sees his son graduate from afar

I still remember the weather, and how it mirrored Marita, warm with clouds, but the sun peering through.

Marita had written me with the simplest of requests.

Shed had autoimmune disease much of her life. It had caused fibrosis, which left her lungs stiffened. A double-lung transplant might have helped a little but wouldnt be a cure.

So Marita had chosen to live with what she had and accept that her heart had only so many beats left.

Then came the unexpected request.

The disease had left her handscold, even in summer. But because they were twisted,it was hard to fit them into mittens.

So shed invented some for others like her, with Velcro that opens all the way to the knuckles.

Would that be worth a mention in my column?

She wasnt asking for help with her medical challenges, just the reward of knowing shed made a small difference for other sufferers.

You would make this dying creative lady really happy, she wrote.

More: Mark Patinkin: Two years since a dream team found and removed his cancer

I published sucha mention, andwill again now you can buy themat the Facebook shopping page called Phalang-EASE Mittens.

The other day, four years later, there came a message on my phone from Anne Paolilli, older sister to Marita.

I wanted you to know, she said, Marita fought like hell for five years after she was told to go home and get her things in order."

Through the grace of God, medicine and her own spirit, said Anne, she prevailed.

But finally, on the 19th of February, her time came.

I called Anne back, and as we spoke, she had to pause many times because of emotion.

She told me Marita grew up working-class in Elmhurst, the youngest of three daughters, born to a truck-driver dad and a mom who worked for the states library for the blind.

Her symptoms began in high school, not just the rheumatoid arthritis, but a blood vessel disease that gradually weighed on her heart.

Anne, full time back then with the National Guard, would pause before dressing in her uniform to help Marita out of bed.

Thats how bad it was at age 17.

And yet Marita endured until she was just days shy of 56.

Anne, who went from the military to work for the Providence police, says this of her often frail little sister:

She was the toughest person I ever knew.

I only spent an hour with Marita, but I saw the same, how her spirit overcame her infirmity.

As well as other challenges.

Like a divorce.

And having to struggle at times to keep working.

But she did, forging a career at Rhode Island Hospitals genetics department, later at Trader Joes in Warwick, and, when her illness allowed that no longer, her mittenbusiness.

More: Mark Patinkin: At 104, Providence native is West Point's oldest graduate

Maritas two sons were her proudest legacy.

Peter is now with the U.S. Coast Guard stationed inBahrain, and Michael is an HVAC guy.

In an online remembrance, here is what Peter said of his mom:

You taught me to be grateful when things werent great, and humble when they were.

As Marita and I sat at Starbucks in 2017, I said it seemed hard for her to do certain movements like bending over.

She laughed. Oh, everythings stiff, but I make it work.

If it was me, I said, Id be grumpy.

That doesnt get you anyplace, said Marita. People dont like grumpy.

The author Jordan Peterson argues that life should not be about striving for happiness, because the human condition involves constant challenge, and often hardship.

The true measure is whether we navigate that with character.

And, as I learned from Marita Loffredo, with grace.

It is certainly how she lived, and will live on.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

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Patinkin: A goodbye to Marita, who shined by soldiering through illness - The Providence Journal

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The Mets are "off" on Saturday in quotation marks because they don't have a Grapefruit League game, but they'll still have a camp day.

They had a crazy week, from Carlos Carrasco's hamstring injury to Dominic Smith's wrist soreness. Even still, they remain optimistic as they head toward Opening Day on April 1.

As the Mets enter the weekend, here are five things to know about where they stand:

Mar 16, 2021; Port St. Lucie, Florida, USA; New York Mets left fielder Dominic Smith (2) connects for a three-run homerun in the 3rd inning of the spring training game against the Houston Astros at Clover Park. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports(Photo: Jasen Vinlove, Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)

The good news is this: Smith on Friday said his wrist feels "really good." The Mets are holding him out of spring training games as a precaution.

"Like I told (manager)Luis (Rojas), if this were the regular season, I would definitely be out there and pushing through this, but obviously we know its a long marathon and we just want to be smart," Smith said.

Smith took swings in the batting cage on Friday. To be clear: This is a day earlier than the Mets expected him to begin swinging.

For subscribers: Here are the Top 10 things we've learned about the Mets at spring training

On Saturday, the Mets are planning on having a simulated game. Smith could participate in that, Rojas said.

Will Smith receive enough at-bats to be ready for Opening Day?

"I'm going to be able to get plenty of at-bats over the next couple days," Smith said."I'm sure we'll have a ton of B games. Guys are going to need to throw and I'll be able to take some at-bats over there. I'm not too worried."

And what about playing in left field, which is not his natural position?

"Like I said from the first day I played in the big leagues to now, I feel extremely comfortable," Smith said. "I'm excited just to see my progression over the last couple of years. I'm confident I'll be able to be fine out there in left field. I just can't wait to get out there and play. It's a long season. I'm excited and I'm just ready to go out there and just do my best."

The Mets have raved about their pitching depth.

Now it's time to test it.

Carlos Carrasco suffered a grade 1 hamstring strain confirmed by an MRI, manager Luis Rojas said. His recovery timetable is unknown.

It would seem David Peterson, Joey Lucchesi and Jordan Yamamoto are fighting for two rotation spots. But Rojas on Friday also lauded Corey Oswalt.

Peterson pitched in the rotation in 2020, his rookie season. He was the Mets' most reliable starter behind Jacob deGrom. Asked if Peterson's prior performance gives him a leg up on the competition, Rojas said:"We feel that Petey is going to be part of our rotation, thinking on a day like today."

If that holds, then Lucchesi and Yamamoto who have both pitched well this spring would be fighting for one spot. But the Mets have remained open-minded in their depth options.

The Mets, Rojas said recently, will not use a six-man rotation. But they're continuing to ponder using an opener on some days, but not for every fifth day.

More: Here's why the 2021Mets' outfield depth looks better than in recent seasons

More: A 22-pitch walk? NY Mets' Luis Guillorme makes some history in game vs. Cardinals

Taijuan Walker, who started Friday's 8-5 win over the Cardinals at Clover Park, threw four scoreless innings. He allowed two baserunners one on a hit, another on a walk. But he faced the minimum because he rolled double play balls to erase both runners.

"Everything felt really good," Walker said.

The key forWalker: Continuing to listen to his body.

Walker has only made 15 starts in the last three seasons because he had Tommy John surgery in 2018. He made 11 starts in 2020, but the 162-game season will mean his workload will increase.

Just being smart," Walker said. "I think going out there every day and seeing how my body responds, and getting the treatment when I need it, staying up with my workouts and my arm."

Walker has allowed two runs in six innings of Grapefruit League action. On Sunday, his previous start day, he pitched in a B game on a back field.

More: Turk Wendell, only other Mets player to wear No. 99, passes the torch to Taijuan Walker

In Friday's win, Mets star Francisco Lindor hit a grand slam. It was his second homer of the spring.

"This is something that he's been adopting because of his work ethic, his God-given abilities, just a mix of that," Rojas said of Lindor's power. "He's stronger than when he got to the big-league level."

'I'm living the dream': Francisco Lindor setting the tone for new-look Mets

With no designated hitter, the Mets must also prepare their pitchers to hit. They plan to begin that on Sunday, when Jacob deGrom faces the Nationals in West Palm Beach.

Instead of using a DH which is allowed in spring training the Mets will put deGrom in the lineup. Of course, as you may know, deGrom enjoys hitting.

More: Jacob deGrom 'ready to go,' shows Cy Young form for NY Mets in dominant win over Astros

More: How a surprise meeting led to Mets ace Jacob deGrom becoming Matt Allan's mentor

Justin Toscanois theMetsbeat writer for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to allMetsanalysis, news, trades and more, pleasesubscribe todayanddownload our app.

Email:toscanoj@northjersey.com

Twitter:@justinctoscano

The rest is here:

NY Mets: What to know about where the team stands heading into the weekend - NorthJersey.com

Jordan Peterson is back. The Canadian professor of psychology who is one of the worlds leading intellectuals has recovered from a coma that resulted from his severe dependence on sedatives, which nearly killed him. His new book Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life has just been released, and he seems set to resume a public career that made him famous and wealthy. The left has a not-so-subtle message for Peterson upon his resurrection: Watch your back.

Last year, an article called What Happened to Jordan Peterson? appeared in the New Republic. Were it not for an article in the Atlantic this week, it would barely be worth mentioning in its substance. In it, the author attempts to explain how Peterson wound up in a coma in Russia. She fully admits she has no actual idea, but that does not stop her from her guesswork or to mock the supposed guru of self-restraint for his condition.

The article is reminiscent of the endless parade of psychologists and psychoanalysts on certain cable news networks who opined for years about the perilous state of Donald Trumps mental health. In both examples, what is amazing is that any doctor would go on the record regarding such matters without so much as examining the patient. It is also worth noting that those same cable networks and publications not only ignore the regular mental and physical lapses of Joe Biden but treat them as little more than grandfatherly charm.

It is the second, more recent piece, also titled What Happened To Jordan Peterson, by feminist scribe Helen Lewis whose famous GQ interview with Peterson in 2018 garnered more than 26 million views on YouTube in the Atlantic that really sheds light on the message the progressive media is sending to Peterson. That message is that should he get back in the public intellectual game, there will be a huge target on him. But that of course is nothing new.

Lewis invents a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde out of the Canadian professor. On the one hand, he is a thoughtful professor who should know his small place in the ivory tower. On the other, he is a contemptible anti-feminist culture warrior. She writes:

[T]he relentless demands of modern celebrity more content, more access, more authenticity were already tearing the psychologists public persona in two. One Peterson was the father figure beloved by the normie readers of 12 Rules, who stood in long lines to hear him speak and left touching messages on internet forums, testifying that he had turned their lives around. The other Peterson was a fearsome debater, the gladiator who crowed Gotcha! at the British television interviewer Cathy Newman.

There is a reason that Lewis insists on creating these two Petersons. The latter is absolutely key to the straw man she creates to prove her thesis that Petersons medical condition was a direct result of his desire for fame and fortune. She is desperate for his true disease to be not dependence, but hubris. At no point does she seriously entertain the possibility that the unhinged, often personal attacks launched against Peterson by progressives after his rise to fame played any role whatsoever in his condition. It is of course quite possible that it did not, but in an article full of guesswork, it is a possibility no fair-minded person could ignore.

The fundamental flaw in Lewiss piece is in separating Petersons scholarly work from his role as a public intellectual dealing with pressing issues of the day. She describes in detail how he got in hot water for refusing to use transgender pronouns and for arguing that men and women do and should play different societal roles. He has also been bitterly attacked for his disbelief in the concept of white privilege.

That Lewis thinks these positions exist somehow outside of his more scholarly work betrays how little she understands him or his appeal. His earliest YouTube success in 2017 was a series of lectures on the Bible, and what its stories can tell us about the modern condition. In the vein of Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell, Peterson has this strange notion that ancient stories actually matter, that they are guideposts left to us as an inheritance.

Far from being separate from his culture war battles, his work in bringing the tales of old into modern importance are of a piece with it. In both, he preaches that we are in fact constrained by reality, that it is not simply a mutable plastic we can form to our will. That is ultimately the message that so many, including but not limited to struggling young men, found so appealing and helpful.

For his trouble, he was accused, as Lewis acknowledges, of being some father figure of the alt-right, a Nazi-creating machine leading men astray in dangerous ways. This was always nonsense. But it did give cover for screed after screed decrying the negative influence and personal flaws of Peterson. But what was the left really attacking? What were they so upset by in his work? Here we must go back to Lewiss false dichotomy.

It was not his positions on hot-button issues that truly angered the left; it was the root of them: his belief that the Bible, mythology, and the Western tradition still have lessons to teach us. For progressives, these stories must be silenced, or at least contextualized in a way that shows how little they apply to todays world in which we can all be pretty unicorns if we so choose. It is Petersons attacks on postmodernism and particularly Marxism, both of which erode the stories of our ancestors that the left cannot abide, that is poison to their project.

And so the anti-Peterson articles have begun to flow like water. They are a threat, make no mistake. If Peterson will just shut up, go back to teaching, and call people by their chosen pronouns, he will be left alone. If not, if he dares take to the public square, the denunciations will continue. And if that harms his mental health, so be it. He is just that dangerous, they can justify doing harm to protect their precious shibboleths.

But we can hope he doesnt slink away. His contributions to discourse, the causes of freedom, and to our connection to ancient humanity are already enough to mark a great career. His once-controversial positions have become more mainstream; others have taken up the mantle. But he is not shy, and we should not be blamed for desiring more of his wisdom.

Jordan Peterson is back. We dont know exactly what that will look like beyond one feature we already see: The progressive media will resume their vendetta against him, without care regarding the man himself. It is shameless, and it is dishonest. But it also exactly what progressives do when they cant win an argument on the merits. For now, all we can do is wait and see and wish him well. It is nice to have him back.

David Marcus is a New York-based writer. Follow him on Twitter, @BlueBoxDave.

Originally posted here:

Jordan Peterson Was A Victim Of Vicious Critics And He Still Is - The Federalist

This book does not arrive like other books. This book is very self-important and hard to get a glimpse of, a sign of Jordan Petersons global celebrity and the psychodrama that surrounds him. Either he is the worlds greatest public intellectual( er, really?) or he is that strange, driven Canadian shrink who found fame in his fifties by writing a book that reached those who dont normally read self-help books: men.

Not since I had to go and sit in an office to leaf through Madonnas Sex book and promise not to reveal anything about it (guess what it was about!) have I felt so much nervousness around a book.

The success of his earlier book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, was phenomenal, selling millions globally. Overnight this stern-looking clinical psychologist became a guru for men who felt dispossessed by modernity, and feminism in particular. His lectures were packed out. His YouTube channel a huge success.

His advice stand up straight (this is how lobsters establish dominance, apparently), tidy your room, treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping was obvious and underpinned by stories from his clinical practice and his reading of the Bible, Jung, Russian literature and mythology.

In an age of moral relativism he was giving his readers a compass. He spoke about the poor self-esteem of young men and took against the aggrieved victimhood of campus culture. He reminded me a lot of Camille Paglia, whom I interviewed in the 1990s. Punchy and utterly at odds with kids raised in soft play areas.

For this he became a figurehead for the alt-Right when he is not that at all. Rather he is an old-fashioned liberal with a conservative attitude to the family, a man who doesnt believe in patriarchy but acts precisely as a paternal authority to all the lost boys.

Watching him, it is apparent he cannot obey his own rules, but in telling us that life is suffering (as all major religions do) and that the goal is to find meaning rather than happiness, he does have something to say. Within him, one feels chaos is near the surface. He often cries and is crumpled with emotion.

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Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, review: Jordan Peterson is back with a self-help book that is not here to hug you better - Telegraph.co.uk