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Oct. 28, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
26:44
A Hero of #FreeSpeech
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What's in a name?
Potentially a great deal.
University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson has a fight on his hands after objecting to proposed legislation that he says would violate his freedom of speech by forcing him to address transgendered people using the pronouns of their choosing.
professor jordan pierson of the university of toronto is currently fighting the good fight irl against the sjws in the university that are putting themselves against him He recently had a debate on the agenda with Steve Pakin.
I've never seen this before, but Steve Pakin was a remarkably fair moderator and the discussion was really, really productive.
I'll leave a link in the description below and if you can take the time to watch that first so you can see exactly how the conversation went for you and I honestly think it will give more texture to what I'm going to be saying in this video.
In this video I'll be picking out extracts to talk about that I think are relevant so I really recommend that you watch the original first.
Here are the three people I'll be talking about in this video.
The aforementioned Jordan Peterson, Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto.
Nicholas Matt, lecturer, transgender studies at U of T and Mary Rogan, whose article entitled Growing Up Trans is featured in the October issue of The Walrus magazine.
So to begin, Jordan completely understands social justice warriors and even refers to them as such.
And that's why I've seen that happening on campuses in particular for the last 30 years.
In your YouTube talk, you describe those who oppose you on this issue as, quote, resentful and uninformed.
Yes.
Tell me why you think that's accurate.
Well, I worked for the NDP when I was a kid.
From the time I was 14 to the time I was 18, I worked with Rachel Notley's father and her mother and knew them very well.
And I actually found them very admirable people, as well as the other people on the socialist end of the distribution who are genuinely working for the rights of working class people, coming out of that Saskatchewan tradition that established health care and pension and all of that.
But I noted at the same time that the party functionaries, let's say, weren't that sort of person at all.
They didn't really like the working class.
They weren't standing up for them.
And I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I read George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier, which is a brilliant book and which was written for the Left Book Club in the UK.
And he was talking about the failures of socialism in the United Kingdom and then discussed intellectual socialists of the type who didn't exactly like the poor.
They just hated the rich.
Resentful and uninformed, though.
Yes, well, the resentful part is the willingness to pull down any structure that's hierarchical because of resentment about not being on the top.
And uninformed is, well, it's the consistent attempt to force every political issue into a single, into the domain encompassed and viewed through this single lens.
That really is the core of why the SJWs are doing what they're doing.
Jealousy of power.
Someone else has it, they don't have it, and they want it.
Which we will see demonstrated as we go through this video.
But Jordan is also someone who's been in academia for 30 years, and he has seen exactly what's going on.
And, well, prepare to be red-pilled, my dudes.
Is it a cabal of radical left-wingers?
Yes, it's a cabal of radical left-wingers, and they've been active behind and in front of the scenes increasingly over the last 30 years.
And my estimation is that departments like Women's Studies have trained between 300,000 and 3 million radical left-wing activists, and they're making...
And they're all underpaid, so don't worry.
No, they're all earning exactly what they deserve.
But the point is, we both agree that they're there.
Being a professor of psychology, Jordan completely understands how political correctness can be used as a weapon.
You would define that.
How?
Political correctness.
Well, I think it's a particular kind of ideological game, and I think the outcome is twofold.
It's to make the player feel morally superior and also to take rather serious act swings at the foundation of society.
And so the game is identify a domain of human endeavor.
Note that there's a distribution of success.
Some people are doing comparatively better and some people are doing comparatively worse.
Define those doing worse as victims.
Define those doing better as perpetrators.
Identify with the victims.
Have yourself a set of enemies handy to vent your resentment on.
Feel good about it, even though it didn't really require any work on your part.
And then endlessly repeat.
Which is precisely what Nicholas Matt, the transgender studies professor, goes on to do.
Why, in your view, do you think the trans community needs this kind of legislative protection?
Well, thank you.
That's basically the point that hasn't been raised yet, which is that people are actually suffering huge lack of access to resources that will allow people to survive.
So people are being physically assaulted.
People do not have counselors that they can go to who are not going to, as Dr. Peterson has done on YouTube, recommend that they actually become more anxious and more upset about situations.
People are being assaulted.
I brought all sorts of really depressing stats that people who are leaning towards thinking that this is not that big of a deal.
Those people need to look at those stats, but many people...
Give us one.
Give us one stat.
Yeah, so 58% of students could not get academic transcripts with their correct name or pronoun.
It's incredible.
The man is like a living stereotype.
Jordan completely predicted exactly how he would act.
And that's exactly how he did act when called upon to talk.
We invited another guest to be on the program today, and this person initially said yes and then sent a Facebook message to our producer Vodik Schemberg saying, you know what?
Changed my mind.
Giving Jordan Peterson this platform serves to legitimize his views, which are based on bigotry and misinformation.
The humanity and rights of transgender, non-binary, and intersex people are not a matter of debate.
And holding a debate which places a false equivalency between the views expressed by Peterson and the human rights concerns of the trans community would be an act of transphobia.
Therefore, none of us wish to participate in this.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you for reading that.
That's a very important perspective.
Not really.
It's the perspective of the censor.
If you want to have your side represented, why should you not expect the people opposing you to have their side represented too?
Anyway, he also believes that biological sex isn't real.
It's not correct that there is such a thing as biological sex.
So he is also a science denialist.
And your attempts to regulate my language use and I don't care about your language use.
I care about the safety of the people who are being harmed.
I know people who make your kinds of arguments are always concerned with other people's safety.
I'm concerned with my own safety.
Just so that people are aware, my physical, emotional life and livelihood is at risk from being here.
Yes, in addition to all of these things, he appears to be a paranoid lunatic who thinks that his physical safety is in danger by going on this show.
As if everyone isn't being eminently sympathetic to his point of view.
Apart from Jordan, who looks like he's on trial.
And I don't say that facetiously.
I mean that Nicholas is actually putting Jordan on trial when he makes allegations that he is an abuser.
Could I speak to the campus climate about this?
Because I don't agree with why Dr. Peterson has been asked to stop abusing students on campus.
To stop doing what?
Abusing students.
I see.
And other members of our learning community who do deserve respect and do deserve to be able to work and learn and contribute to society in a place where if they are physically assaulted, if they are.
The assaults so far came from the social justice warriors who are at this free speech rally and almost 2 million people have this.
This is not accurate.
This is not accurate.
Well, you can look at the videos yourself.
So despite representing the ideology that is actually committing violence and harassing people for its own political ends, he has the temerity to accuse his opponent of abusing people.
And this is his rationale when he is forced to double down on that statement.
Nick, can I be clear on something?
You've accused him of abusing students by not using the pronouns they want to be addressed to.
That's how I see it, absolutely.
That's how I see it.
Which is wonderful because we also know that you are a paranoid, censorious, science-denying lunatic.
Which is why absolutely zero other people in this conversation take you even vaguely seriously when you make an allegation that he is abusing students.
That is tantamount to abuse in your view.
Absolutely.
Many, many global documents, many organizations.
Is it tantamount to violence?
Yes.
How about hate speech?
Is it tantamount to hate speech?
Yes, of course.
It's hate speech to tell someone that you won't refer to them as a in a way that they that recognizes their humanity and dignity.
Can you even imagine being presented with such utter twaddle as you are denying this person's humanity if you don't do as they say?
And we should, while we're on the subject, probably take a look at the greater good that we are sacrificing our autonomy and freedom of speech for.
Because people have been making complaints about your behavior.
Yes, I understand that.
Yes.
And so we're seeing a greater opportunity for social justice happening that many people won't understand.
I am honestly amazed at how brazen they will be and how open they will be because they talk in a way that most people don't understand.
Exactly as he says.
He is unbelievably arrogant.
I mean, he is trying to advance the cause of social justice by gaining control over an enemy of social justice.
And that's what this is about.
This is all about control.
So free speech is a great idea and equality is a great idea, but we actually can't have those conversations when people are not even able to be present.
Isn't that incredible?
Your rights are actually negotiable depending on what we decide.
And we have decided that free speech, it's a good idea, but you're not allowed to discuss it unless you do it as we want you to.
At one point, Nicholas interrupted Jordan with this little question.
What does that entail?
Are you open to learning?
Aren't you open to learning?
As in, I'm trying to help you.
I'm trying to do what is best for you.
You should let me control you, and that will be the best thing for everyone here.
And he may as well literally just say those words.
So we're not actually talking, we shouldn't be talking about free speech.
What we should be talking about are the social issues facing people who are being discriminated against and what that looks like on campus, which is that some professors refuse to offer basic dignity to students and colleagues.
And that leads to people missing classes.
It leads to people dropping out.
It leads to a lack of positive opportunity for society to actually benefit from the contributions of many, many people.
And I also don't teach that there's a huge divide between trans people and non-trans people because I would say the number is 100% of people will benefit from more open discussion.
And one of the problems is that it's being addressed in a black and white way.
So it's too bad that we can't actually have an open conversation.
Here's somebody who's a huge violence between us.
Again, I can hardly believe the mental gymnastics.
We're not going to talk about free speech.
We're going to talk about how we're the victims.
We need to have control of this conversation and that will be best for everyone.
100% of people will be better off if we are the ones in charge.
And you should do this because we are the victims.
Look at us.
We're so pathetic.
We've been hurt so badly by the system.
And they're so evasive when they get asked pertinent questions.
For example, when you ask, how many trans people are there?
Well, they don't want to tell you.
Mary, how prevalent is transgenderism in our world?
I don't think I can answer that question.
I think that I would agree with Nicholas that there is some discrepancy on these numbers and there is some variance on the numbers.
I guess I'm curious as to why we need to put a number on this because that's come up by I listened to Jordan's video and that was something that was mentioned.
You know, this is statistically, you know, there are so few intersex people as to be it's insignificant.
It's important because the question the SJWs are asking is can we control you?
We would like to, we would like you to give up your power to 0.3% at a generous estimate of the population.
It is an absurd thing for 0.3% of the population to have legislative force behind their social demands.
That is crazy.
And that's why it's so fucking important when you go, well, I just don't see why.
Well, if it doesn't matter, just tell us.
If it doesn't matter, just tell us.
And then people go, we're not going to change society for 0.3% of the population.
That's why.
And that's why you have to keep asking.
In this next part, I want you to listen to the tone and cadence of this man when he is delivering facts, when he is delivering things that he thinks are true.
What does cis normative mean?
So I'm going to start us there.
Cis normative is basically the very popular idea and assumption that most people probably have, and definitely that our structures convey that there is such a thing as male and female, that they connect to being a girl or a boy or a man or a woman.
And then sometimes that will also recognize intersex or trans people or transsexual people, as you mentioned.
The tone he uses to deliver these facts is flat because he's not expecting any kind of confrontation on them.
Most people do believe these things.
As he keeps pushing further with these demands, he finds himself on shakier ground with less concrete reasons for doing things.
And he instinctively increases the pitch of his tone to be asking a question when he should be making a statement.
That causes a huge chain of events for students or anybody who's had any kind of academic training.
As everyone recognizes, we need to be able to have references, we need to be able to have resumes, we need to be able to get jobs.
He knows that trans people's ability to get jobs is not predicated on people using their personal pronouns.
He knows that's nonsense.
You know that's nonsense.
But he is pushing his agenda.
Every time he goes beyond the realm of reality and starts pushing his ideological bullshit, his statements become questions.
And he does this constantly.
Listen.
So I want to be sure that I'm clear.
I'm clearly understanding your point here, which is, and therefore they feel disrespected and therefore this affects their life in a very real way.
Is that right?
The feeling of disrespect is not as important as the ways that people in authority are able to circumvent the possibilities for living.
So it has more to do with not being able to find housing and therefore being homeless, has more to do with not being able to get jobs because people are discriminated against.
He says they are being discriminated against as if he is asking him if they are being discriminated against.
Well, if people don't use their personal pronouns, they're going to be homeless.
Nonsense.
Give us some of the other pronouns that one would hear, typically.
I don't focus on pronouns because pronouns are actually part of a cisnormative culture.
So what we do is learn about...
I'm going to stop you right there.
Yes, cisnormative.
I was just about to explain.
Good.
So we don't start from a cisnormative perspective because that can't actually go very far.
You know that system that controls 99.97% of all people on earth?
Well, that system can't go very far.
Bollocks.
It's currently the global gender paradigm that you are challenging.
But again, he asks this like it's a question and he's the one trying to make a statement.
And that's not true.
I don't know about yours because I do.
I know perfectly well about myself.
I do know that you have tenure and that that's one of the major ways that you're able to do this.
But I just want people to be aware that trans and gender diverse communities and especially people of color are being targeted and threatened physically.
The reason he uses the same tone of voice as one uses when they're asking a question when he's apparently making a statement is because he is subconsciously probably asking you if you are going to buy his bullshit.
He is asking the listener permission to carry on with a chain of statements that he knows are increasingly failing to represent reality accurately to the point where they are just outright lies and bullshit.
And because he's using this tone of voice and he's playing on the listener's guilt over the terrible things that has happened to these poor victims, he's asking you to simply let him have control.
It is devilishly subtle and insidious to the point where the host doesn't even think they're having the same conversation.
Listen to what he says here.
That's why I read it.
I wonder whether, Jordan, everybody's talking past each other here.
You are trying to make a point about free speech.
I don't think we're talking past each other's teeth.
Well, but the others, you're trying to make a point about free speech.
The other side is trying to make a point about the rights, the human rights of trans people.
No, they're not.
They're not talking about the human rights of trans people at all.
I mean, he's mentioned the humanity of them, but that's a rhetorical flourish.
That's not him talking about any specific human rights, because they don't have any rights that they're missing.
What they're asking for is special privileges for their group.
They are asking for control over other people, and they are just expecting other people to give that up.
And Jordan knows exactly what is going on here, and this is his reply.
That's not the point that you're trying to make.
Do we have two different groups here that are trying to make two different points, and they find themselves in the same bowl of soup, and that's why this has turned into the conflagration it has?
Well, it's partly that because the issues we're discussing have to center on some actual issues, and they happen to be centering on the issue surrounding transgender language.
But I don't think we're talking past each other at all in a fundamental sense.
I mean, I think that the real problem here is that there's a concerted attempt made, being made by many people to subvert all values to the value of equality of outcome.
What he's identifying here is they are anti-liberal.
They don't want a free system where people can operate as and how they choose and deal with each other on an interpersonal level.
They want control on a systemic level to make sure, as he says, there is an equal outcome rather than an equal opportunity.
And we've seen this many, many times with all of the quotas and diversity targets and all this sort of thing.
This is the point.
And I think the thing I really despise most about these sort of people is that they will present their vision of the world with a smiley face and say, this is going to be better for everyone.
And if you don't acquiesce to their greater good, they will implement intimidation tactics against you, even against professors in universities.
And what's the other, you referred to persecution that friends or clients of yours had experienced?
Yeah, yeah, well, there are lots of places now where the workplace has become, I would say, excessively politicized.
And so people who have viewpoints, and this also involves, includes, I would say, fairly radical leftist viewpoints, people don't feel comfortable at all in being able to use the language of their choice or to have even opinions about a variety of different things.
And so, and I've had three clients who I would say have been, we'll say harassed, I suppose is the right way of putting it.
On social media or otherwise?
No, at work, at work, at work, by people who don't like their political opinions, essentially.
You can see how reluctant he is to classify what happened to his colleagues as harassment.
He thinks it sounds overblown.
I mean, these people are claiming to be victims.
But then we already know that we are dealing with wolves in sheep's clothing.
I was being asked, as everyone is, to use a certain set of words that I think are the constructions of people who have a political ideology that I don't believe in and that I also regard as dangerous.
What are those words?
Those are the made-up words that people now describe as gender neutral.
And so to me, they're an attempt to control language and in a direction that isn't happening organically.
It's not happening naturally.
People aren't picking up these words in the typical way that new words are picked up, but by force and by fiat.
And I would say by force, because there's legislative power behind them.
SJWs are not the innocent, wide-eyed victims of an evil system.
They're in fact predatory con artists who are looking to use your own best intentions against you.
And this game works best when what they have to say is true.
Trans people do suffer from a higher level of suicide than the regular population.
They do suffer from elevated levels of violence, probably motivated by the fact that there are people who are afraid of trans people.
This may well all be true.
But there is no way I must submit any of my own will or self-control or self-determination to these people because I'm not the one doing that.
But I'm also partly opposed to this because it's been made mandatory and has the whole weight of the law behind it.
It's like this is a very bad idea.
I believe this is a very bad idea.
And I believe that the reason this has caused so much noise, tremendous amount of noise, tremendous amount of attention on YouTube, is because there are things that are at stake in this discussion, despite its surface nature, that strike at the very heart of our civilization.
That's what I believe.
And he's absolutely right.
The question is, will the minority dictate what the majority has to do?
That's the question.
Should the minority be able to impose this on the majority?
And the answer is, of course, no, because that's a fucking aristocracy.
And you can tell that it's a person's natural resistance to being put under illegitimate authority that Jordan is reacting to, because his reaction is emotional.
Because the University of Toronto decided to make anti-racism and anti-bias training, so-called anti-racism and anti-bias training, mandatory, which I regarded as an inappropriate incursion into the domain of political opinion by the university administration.
Have you taken that training yet?
No, and I don't have to yet.
It's the HR department personnel that have to take it.
If they decide that you have to, will you?
No way.
Not a chance.
And are you prepared to suffer the consequences that society may deem you need to suffer because of your views?
I'm yes, I'm prepared to do that.
Well, so what am I willing to do?
Well, I think that the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal is probably obligated by their own tangled web to bring me in front of it.
If they find me, I won't pay it.
If they put me in jail, I'll go on hunger strike.
I'm not doing this.
That's that.
I'm not using the words that other people require me to use, especially if they're made up by radical left-wing ideologues.
You can tell that Jordan has suffered many slings and arrows to get to this point, and that he is now facing legal punishment in the same sort of way Socrates did for refusing to recant his position.
He's drawn his line in the sand.
He knows where he stands, and he knows why he stands there.
And I agree with him 100% on this.
In fact, I'm really having trouble viewing him as something other than a hero of free speech.
The balls on this man, to stand there and say, no, all you want is control, and I'm simply not going to acquiesce.
And to be faced with a fine that, if he doesn't pay, will result in jail time, which he is then intending on going on a hunger strike to protest about, is pretty fucking incredible.
He's saying that he is prepared to ruin his life, his career, his finances, his reputation, his criminal record, presumably, to make sure that these people don't have control over him.
I can only imagine how difficult it is for a lone man in the belly of the beast to turn around and say no, no further, I won't do this.
I don't know if there's any way we can help for all of this, but I imagine if you went to At Jordan B. Peterson on Twitter and sent him a message just telling him how you feel about his situation and if you appreciate it that you do, that the moral support would go an awfully long way.
I've never spoken to Professor Peterson.
I don't know anything about him other than this interview.
But from this interview alone, I can tell so much about what has happened.
While it does appear that the man has very definitely made up his mind, I'm sure that he wouldn't mind a few words of encouragement if you felt inclined to send them.
Which is what I'll be doing along with the hashtag free speech, which I think is worth including in case anyone wants to try and find other like-minded people on the issue.
Try and help people network and let people keep in contact, you know?
And I will give professional crybully Nicholas Matt the last word.
I will let him explain to us exactly why people hate social justice warriors.
I'll let him explain exactly why they fight enemies wherever they go.
And isn't that the...
that's a famous phrase, the personal is political.
But something is political when someone is attacking you on a basis that is personal and that you can't change about yourself.
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