Sargon of Akkad, Jordan Peterson In The Crosshairs
Bret Weinstein, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, what is the intellectual dark web? RT and many outlets have been on a smearwave misinforming readers by insinuating that people like Sargon of Akkad and Jordan Peterson somehow support White Nationalism.News flash, they don't. But why then are we seeing the Guardian try to associate college academics with people like Alex jones?Are these actually just ideological hit pieces? Is it an attempt to poison the well so that people will associate free thinkers with conspiracy theories?SUPPORT JOURNALISM. Become a patron athttp://www.patreon.com/TimcastSupport the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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Sargon of Akkad, a powerful voice within the growing alt-right movement, is a statement that makes absolutely no sense, because anybody who's done even 30 seconds of Google searching would see that Sargon is not alt-right, and he regularly speaks out against the alt-right.
And then we have Jordan Peterson, who also regularly speaks out against the alt-right, but for some reason is still labeled by the media as alt-right.
Recently we saw an opinion piece by Barry Weiss in the New York Times where she talked about a group called the Intellectual Dark Web.
This seems to be a group of intellectuals who are willing to challenge the mainstream infrastructure, and they're willing to criticize their own tribe.
In response to this, more stories have come out maligning whatever this group of individuals is, and even trying to insinuate that people like Alex Jones are somehow related to academics like Brett Weinstein and Jordan Peterson.
So why exactly is the media trying to malign so many individuals who challenge the mainstream narrative?
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First up from Russia today are Milo Yiannopoulos, Tommy Robinson, and Sargon of Akkad, hypocrites.
Towards the bottom of the article we can see the section on Sargon, and it says, Part of the growing alt-right, Sargon of Akkad, whose real name is Carl Benjamin, rose to prominence during Gamergate, an anti-feminist backlash by a section of gamers from which Benjamin developed a reputation for opposing anti-misogyny movements and writers, garnering himself 800,000 YouTube subscribers in the process.
He controversially tweeted Labor MP Jess Phillips after she wrote in the Huffington Post that people talking about raping me isn't fun, but has become somewhat par for the course, in which he said he wouldn't even rape her, which drew criticism from many on Twitter.
A lot of people probably don't know this, but Russia Today has been far left for basically forever.
There was a show hosted by Abby Martin called Breaking the Set.
Lee Camp, who is a lefty, left-wing activist, has a show on RT Today, and we can see this article.
falsely calling Sargon of Akkad alt-right.
But what's particularly funny about this example is that the article even acknowledges the Daily Dot claims that Benjamin does not seem to be a part of the alt-right movement himself, but does enjoy attacking alt-right targets like feminism, Islam, Black Lives Matter, and the notion of straight white male privilege.
Simply criticizing those things doesn't align you with the alt-right, which tends to be defined as white nationalist identitarian.
You can be critical of ideas without being an identitarian.
But one thing that's really fun about this article is the title.
Are Milo Yiannopoulos, Tommy Robinson, and Sargon of Akkad hypocrites?
Well, the answer is very simple.
It's no.
And for this, I will cite Betteridge's Law of Headlines.
It is an adage that states, any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
And the reason for this is basically, if you could definitively say he was a hypocrite, you would.
Why would you ask the question?
The reason you would ask the question is that you don't have enough evidence to support that conclusion, so you don't.
But this is just another article in a string of smears like this one from Right Wing Watch saying, Sargon of Akkad cites white nationalist propaganda, reveals his alt-right sympathies.
Leaving many of us wondering why so many outlets try to smear individuals who would challenge these mainstream narratives.
But actually, right now, James Alsup, who is an Identitarian, I don't believe he identifies as alt-right, but he is a white Identitarian, is currently in a feud of ideas with Sargon, in which he published a video called Strawman of Akkad.
This video here is basically him arguing against Sargon.
But I wanted to bring up this smear of Sargon because it leads me to the main story.
Barry Weiss and her article about the Intellectual Dark Web.
Published in the New York Times, Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web,
an alliance of heretics is making an end run around the mainstream conversation.
Should we be listening?
The article talks about Sam Harris, Eric Weinstein, Dave Rubin, and other personalities within this group.
It says, most simply, it is a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades, and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation on podcasts, YouTube, and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now.
Feeling largely locked out of legacy outlets, they are rapidly building their own mass media channels.
And the Intellectual Dark Web, I believe, was originally kind of a facetious statement, but has now sort of gained traction.
Here we can see this website called intellectualdark.website, and there are a list of individuals that are considered to be part of the Intellectual Dark Web.
People like Eric Weinstein, Nicholas Christakis, Dan Carlin, And another strange faction listed on the site Critical Darker Web, which does include Sargon of Akkad, Akir the Dan, and yes, me!
I don't know how I ended up on this website, but apparently I'm on this website.
If you're familiar with any of the people within the Intellectual Dark Web, they tend to be libertarian.
Meaning, not big-L libertarian, but that they support free thought individuality, things like that.
Anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, and willing to criticize their own tribe.
I'm listed on this website, so I guess what I could say for myself is I have always considered myself left, I have argued in defense of left-wing positions, but I am absolutely willing to confront mainstream narratives, the media, and other left-wing individuals, as well as those on the right.
We can see people like Dave Rubin, who as many of you probably know is a gay married man who has many left-wing positions, but is kind of a dissident, meaning he challenged the mainstream narrative and for it has been smeared time and time again.
We don't know who made this website, but I think when you look at the personalities listed here, you understand what they represent.
Many of these people identify as left, some as right, some really don't identify in any way, but they're people who have interesting ideas, and most people would say that these people are being intellectually honest, and willing to confront and challenge ideas that are controversial, and even admit when they are wrong about something, and change their minds.
Now, in the past, I have been criticized for citing Hanlon's Razor too often.
And Hanlon's Razor is the idea that usually, incompetence comes before malice.
So when I ask the question, why is it that NBC News called Jordan Peterson alt-right, I say it's likely because the reporters didn't actually do their job.
My evidence for this?
Well, in the video from NBC News, the reporter says that Jordan Peterson is getting hundreds of thousands of subscribers, but the video actually shows a number in the millions, meaning he probably didn't actually look into this himself, and he might just be reading voiceover that someone else wrote for him.
But a lot of people have said that I'm missing the point.
That it's actually intentionally ideologically driven, and people are trying to poison the well so they can deplatform these individuals and prevent them from spreading their ideas.
I'm not much for conspiracy theories.
I tend to prefer facts over opinions.
And I think...
You know, I understand why people would believe this truly is ideologically driven, but in my opinion, I just... I'm not going to create a fact out of my opinion.
If I can't prove it, I won't state it.
However, we did see a very strange and interesting article from The Guardian, which gives me pause.
This article has no byline.
What that means is, there's no by someone, right?
There's no name of the individual who wrote this piece.
And I have to wonder why that is, because this article is titled, The Intellectual Dark Web, The Supposed Thinking Wing of the Alt-Right.
Among their number is political correctness scourge Jordan Peterson, and controversialist Milo Yiannopoulos, and they feel shut out of mainstream political debate.
Unfortunately, some people aren't listening to them.
And then there's this photograph.
Alex Jones, who is a member of the Intellectual Dark Web.
Well, let's hold our horses right there.
Alex Jones has nothing to do with whatever the Intellectual Dark Web is, and neither does Milo Yiannopoulos and many other right-wing or new-right personalities.
The Intellectual Dark Web typically refers to academic voices, people like Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein, Ben Shapiro.
These are voices that are across the political spectrum and believe many different things, but seem to be intellectually honest.
Why would the Guardian use a photo of Alex Jones and try and claim that Jones and Yiannopoulos are somehow a part of this group?
The article says, Who are these people?
Among those often included are former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, husband and wife, professors-in-exile Brett Weinstein and Heather Hying, who resigned from Evergreen State College after denouncing a planned day of absence where white students were asked to leave campus, and psychologist and political correctness scourge Jordan Peterson.
It then says, You mean it's all just...terrible people?
Professional controversialists, I would call them.
They come from both the right and sometimes left extremes of the political spectrum, but they all tend to combine some form of hardcore libertarianism with an unfortunate manner.
Well, there it is.
In my opinion, this is an ideological hit piece.
There's no byline.
We don't know who the author is, we can't call them out, and we can't challenge them to debate.
They use a photo of Alex Jones, someone who is considered not part of the intellectual dark web, who is considered not very credible, is The face of this article.
Anybody who's passing by who would see this link and see that photo is immediately going to discredit this idea as right-wing conspiracy theorist nuts.
They mentioned Milo Yiannopoulos, who is very controversial, also not a part of whatever this group is.
But then we have the next piece from Vox.
What Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro have in common with the alt-right?
The bitter resentments of the intellectual dark web explained.
The article starts by directly referencing Barry Weiss's opinion piece on the intellectual dark web in the New York Times.
It says, the truth is rather that dark web intellectuals like Donald Trump supporters and the online alt-right have experienced a sharp decline in their relative status over time.
This is leading them to frustration and resentment.
And this is in reference to the idea that people within the intellectual dark web are being marginalized or silenced, having their free speech rescinded, and things like that.
But then the article shows its true colors.
A group united mainly by its disdain for multiculturalism.
These changes explain why whites and her arm's-length comrades-in-arms feel so embattled.
What they all share is not a general commitment to intellectual free exchange, but a specific political hostility to multiculturalism and all that it entails.
In previous decades, their views were close to hegemonic in the intellectual center.
And there we have it, the intellectual dishonesty.
Because in Barry Wise's opinion piece, the first thing referenced by this Vox article, she mentions Majid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who are also listed on this intellectual dark web website.
But you also have Gad Saad, a Lebanese-Canadian evolutionary behavioral scientist.
That's multiculturalism.
Majid Nawaz, a Muslim, a British activist whose parents are of Pakistani origin.
And obviously Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch-American activist.
That is very multicultural.
And Brett Weinstein has even argued against fighting our own internal prejudices.
To state that they share a disdain for multiculturalism is completely dishonest.
You know, I say intellectually dishonest, but I just say it's a flat-out lie.
The Vox article goes on, how great is the distance between the intellectual dark web and the hard alt-right?
He says, Weiss is largely sympathetic to dark web intellectuals.
Still, she is obviously troubled by the new movement's tendency to embrace right-wing conspiracists such as Pizzagate rumor monger Mike Cernovich, light alt-righter Milo Yiannopoulos, and the frothing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Mike Cernovich, Milo Yiannopoulos and Alex Jones are not a part of what is considered to be the intellectual dark web.
This does seem to be an ideological attack on this group of individuals.
Because, as I mentioned with the Guardian article, if you see a photo of Alex Jones, the first thing the average person is going to do is just say, anyone associated with this is a right-wing nutjob like Jones.
It will immediately discredit actual academics with interesting opinions who are willing to have a debate.
And now for the honorable mention, because in the article it mentions, and it is less well appreciated, is that the online alt-right, orchestrated by Cernovich, Yiannopoulos, and others, had origins quite similar to the somewhat more respectable dark web types that Weiss's piece describes.
Gamergate united men's rights activists, White nationalists and neo-reactionaries around indignation over the inroads that women and minorities have made into video game culture previously dominated by young white men.
And there is so much wrong with this paragraph that I would have to assume the man who wrote this article has done zero research.
Or if he did do any research, it was totally within his own personal bubble and he didn't actually read about the current political ideologies of the alt-right and where Cernovich and Yiannopoulos stand.
Because, for the record, Cernovich is in a mixed-race family, the alt-right is white nationalist, and Milo Yiannopoulos is a gay Jew married to a black man.
Now, it is true that Cernovich and Yiannopoulos have identified as alt-right in the past, but they explain that by saying they didn't understand what alt-right was, and they have since denounced the ideologies of the alt-right.
Whether or not you want to believe them is besides the point.
Their actions speak louder than words.
Was it particularly stupid for these individuals to claim they were alt-right?
Yes.
Maybe stupid isn't the right word.
They just didn't really know what they were talking about, and now they are forever smeared.
But if you want to be intellectually honest about what the alt-right is, it tends to be a white identitarian group with a strong segment of white nationalists.
And when you look at someone like Mike Cernovich or Milo Yiannopoulos, you will see that clearly they do not fit that mold.
So instead of deciding what people's politics are for them, how about we listen to what they have to say and look at their actions to determine whether or not they are actually of that political ideology.
Because when you don't do that, you end up with completely dishonest articles like this, or the extremely dishonest article from The Guardian with a big ol' picture of Alex Jones.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
Is Sargon of Akkad a leader of the alt-right movement?
I really hope you guys recognize that he is not.
Is Jordan Peterson alt-right?
I also hope you recognize that he is not.
So why is it then that the media is lying about so many people?
Often, again, often I cite Hanlon's Razor.
That it is incompetence.
But when you have an article from the Guardian with a big ol' picture of Jones claiming that he's a part of this intellectual dark web trying to equate Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein with Alex Jones, you have to wonder, Is this actually just ideologically driven?
An attempt to poison the well and prevent people from listening to their ideas?
