Jordan Peterson spoke at Queens University in Canada on March 5. The short clip above shows how the event was disrupted, and Peterson's response afterwards.
He fearlessly says what every reasonable person is thinking when they see this sort of thing, but he says it much better than most of us would be able to.
Jordan Peterson is, simply put, a warrior. The weapons of his warfare are words, ideas and logic, coupled with his knowledge of history and human nature. I have tremendous respect for him because of the principled stand he has taken in Canada against political correctness and "compelled speech" by the Canadian government.
The next video is of the entire Queens University presentation. It's nearly two hours long (I watched the whole thing), and it shows the continuing disturbance at the event by neo-Marxist provocateurs. But they fail to stop it.
As the beliggerants are outside, pounding on the windows to the room (actually breaking some), Peterson says, "That's the sound of the Barbarians pounding at the gates."
He wasn't joking. It was an apt and sobering metaphor.
Invading Barbarians, at the gates of Rome, eventually broke through in 410. Mayhem, pillaging, destruction, and mass murder ensued. The once-great Roman empire would be no more. But, yes, Rome fell from within first.
After the event at Queens University, Professor Peterson went to Australia. The following interview in Australia gives you some insights into Peterson, and his stand against "compelled language." This man is on the front lines of a critically important cultural battle.
On the face of it - yes. But JP had a large hand in creating this mess. He clucks and scolds but doesn't see these these kids or what they are: Weaponised useful fools.
ReplyDeleteAs a Canadian I don't get excited about this. Americans would be flabbergasted to learn that you cannot destroy free speech. Think about it. These academics, their idiot students, the lickspittles in the mass media - they are all working hand in glove to push a politically correct narrative.
And yet, you and I, simple working men by all accounts - know perfectly well they are all full of it. If the new York Times tells me the sky is blue, I will go outside and check before I believe them. Most sensible people would. Nobody takes them seriously, they can't sell a newspaper, never mind a subscription - and they are losing money and laying off staff. Their work is so bad that I can read between their lines, note carefully what they AREN'T saying... and arrive at the truth of whatever matter they are trying to spin.
Free speech can never be taken away. People eventually see through it. If they get mad enough, they'll do something about it too.
Elizabeth L. Johnson said, It sounds like you're making excuse not to be thoughtful and active to make a stand against unjust laws, by simply dismissing that they are just, full of it.
DeleteHi Glen,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thought provoking comments. I'm not sure how Peterson created the mess. I thought it was a Canadian law (Bill C-16) that he felt was dangerously wrong, and he was speaking out against it. The mess was created by lawmakers, and it came to him because he voiced concerns.
As I understand it, the major concern Peterson has is not free speech directly, but the compelled speech that C-16 is pushing. Laws once enacted are not easily retracted, and the passage of laws that were never part of law before, inevitably leads to the passage of more such laws. Personal freedoms are lost incrementally.
Laws are no small matter, even down to a local law like in my small rural town. They have the force of government power behind them. That is, the government has the power to totally destroy anyone who it deems is not cooperating with it's enacted laws. That is something government does really well.
I totally agree with you about the media. I rarely watch any mainstream media. I'm more inclined to listen to hours of intelligent discussion in a YouTube interview. No sound bites. No media manipulation. Thoughts and ideas can be fully expressed and discussed. The mainstream media can't offer that, and doesn't want to.
I've watched hours of discussion with Peterson. He knows the students are tools of a larger and more serious ideology. It's the same ideology that has historically promised utopia and delivered millions of murdered citizens. Marxism has a history of taking away more than just freedom of speech.
Universities are where the people who eventually make the laws get their ideas. And those Laws are always made in the major population centers. Simple working people will be directly affected by those laws. The Marxist utopian dream ushered in with Stalin in Russia resulted in the mass starvation of 4 million Ukranian farmers and their families. They were common working people. Centralized laws and corrupt lawmakers purposely inflicted genocide on millions. That's just one example.
I don't discount activist students, crazy as they may appear, because activists are getting the laws changed. While the common people are minding their own business and trying to deal with all the responsibilities of a responsible life, the activists are working very seriously behind the scenes.
If not taken away, free speech can certainly be suppressed. That is what is happening. Jordan Peterson appears to be a man who is, as you say, mad enough, and he's doing something about it. Few people have the courage to take a stand like Peterson and suffer the slings and arrows that such a stand brings. I'd like to think I could do it, but I've experienced it on a very small scale in my community and it's tough. Real tough. He has my greatest respect.
Thank you again for the comment.
Elizabeth L. Johnson said, One word: North Korea. The first Kim was intimate friends with Stalin, from whom he got the idea and instructions how and for what purpose to construction the now 6 concentration camps in that country. A testimony I recently read about communist Romania said, "The government controlled the heat. Nicolae Ceausescu shipped all food to Russia while his people starved. Disagreement was considered an act of aggression. One could be shot, or sent to a re-education camp in Siberia." It's good that Peterson is speaking out. After all, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to say nothing. It's well said that when you stand, having stood, stand firm. We have many weapons of our warfare with which to stand. Many elements of armor. Easier to make up our minds now, than later. Thanks for the post and comments.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth L. Johnson said, Isn't this subject really about responsibility. In the interview, Peterson says young people aren't taught responsibility: responsibility to think for themselves, deeply, not to be pushed around by other's opinions. Isn't that what is happening right now on the mall in Washington D.C.? The gathering of young people to so-called demand governmental action to outlaw firearms, or pass more laws infringing on our constitutional right to bear arms. Those young people are driven by emotion. Emotion, especially anger, makes poor choices. Emotion keeps from thoughtfulness. The young people haven't noticed first of all, that the problem is the state of men's hearts. The problem isn't firearms. Inanimate things have no minds. They haven't noticed that. And as Herrick said, " Laws once enacted aren't easily retracted, and the passage of laws that were never part of laws before (and I would interject, not part of the constitution, as the second amendment), inevitably lead to the passage of more such laws. Personal freedoms are lost incrementally." The young people on the mall, and at least the heckler in the video, and most young people at universities are not thinkers. As Peterson says, they are at the universities (and at government high schools) to absorb professor's teaching based on their opinion. The young people aren't thinking about themselves as tools for right or wrong. Even parents in the U. S. are not thinking about the use of their children in government schools. They are not thinking and investigating for themselves. Peterson is bringing up the subject, not so they will take his word, but to take his admonition to be active to find out for themselves.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Johnson and Herrick Kimball, you've both said it better than I could. A smidge off-topic here... but one of the reasons I am Facebook-free is that a former high school classmate same age as I (64) but obviously liberal, scoffed and ridiculed my statement (5 years ago), that we were quickly losing our personal freedoms. I decided to calmly state facts and not get wrapped up in emotions by pointing out various examples, even down to the cameras that watch our every move on our streets, in stores, banks, eateries, GPS tracking on our phones, a virtual record of every comment on the Internet, etc... He called me "ignorant". Perhaps his eyes will be opened when 'they' come for him.
ReplyDelete