Discovering Professor Jordan B. Peterson: Political Correctness vs. Freedom of Speech
I planned to watch Amazon Prime video this Easter long weekend, but I ended up listening to many speeches and interviews with controversial University of Toronto professor Jordan B. Peterson.
I first heard about Peterson's name last month when I read the news about a protest against him at McMaster University. I watched the video. It was crazy, the students just didn't want him to continue his speech and chanted "shut him down". Such a scene is similar to what happened during China's Culture Revolution roughly from 1966 to 1976. Those McMaster students reminded me a lot of the Red Guards in the way (1) they were both young and naive students; (2) they believed in the ideologies and did not want to listen to other opinions.
I didn't experience the Culture Revelation myself, but my parents did. My father and uncles even changed their names to something like Wei Dong (means "guarding Chairman Mao") or Xue Dong (means "learning from Chairman Mao"). (They changed their names back after it). I have heard stories about that period from my parents and I watched documentaries. During that period, righties were labelled as one of the "Five Black Types". Radical lefties completely shut down the righties. If one dared to raise different opinions, one would be humiliated in front of the public, and many intellectuals were tortured to death, including my maternal grandfather. It was terrifying.
Now back to the McMaster protest against Dr. Peterson. I read the report and got to know a bit about the backstory. Dr. Peterson is a Psychology professor at the University of Toronto. His controversy started from the YouTube videos he posted last September. Last year, there is a Bill C-16 that proposes adding gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act. Dr. Peterson thinks it is a problem because it was written into the law. In his opinion, the law is not the place you debate things like gender identity. You don't instantiate a particular philosophy into the law. So if this bill passes, if someone is against a transgender woman (like Caitlyn Jenner) to participate in certain women's sport, according to the new law, the person could be charged with violating human rights. In my opinion, that's not so right.
Many people labelled Dr. Peterson's opinions as "hate speech", but after watching his speeches, I can't draw such a conclusion. Dr. Peterson was one of the smartest and the most articulate people I ever watched. Anyway, I feel frustrated with the whole Social Justice and Political Correctness things in today's society. I think I am in the middle, and a bit towards the left. But recently, after witnessing more and more radical lefties' behaviors, I can't stop shaking my heads.
For example, the recent news about the Fearless Girl statue in Manhattan’s Financial District. I first heard about it because Jamie Bell posted a picture of it on the International Women's Day. Some see it as some sort of women's empowerment because the girl was "strategically" placed facing the famous Charging Bull sculpture. Then the Charging Bull's creators wanted the Fearless Girl removed. Many "feminists" automatically took the request as "men against women", but the thing is not that simple. Here is a good article:
(1) The Fearless Girl statue is commissioned by an investing company trying to promote their "Gender Diversity Index Fund". The fund's code is "SHE". There is a bronze plaque that reads: Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference. So it is bacially a PR stunt.
(2) Di Modica, the creator of the Charging Bull sculpture, wanted the city to remove The Fearless Girl because he feels the Fearless Girl changes the meaning of the Charging Bull. Instead of being a symbol of “the strength and power of the American people” as Di Modica intended, it’s now seen as an aggressive threat to women and girls - a symbol of patriarchal oppression.
I think Di Modica does have a point here. But Social Justice Warriors like this gossip site blogger didn't want to hear anything about it. This is the typical reaction.
Nope. Just… nope. He has no f-king case. No one did anything to the Charging Bull. Fearless Girl was just placed in the Bull’s sight line and that doesn’t infringe on any copyright or anything. This actually angers me that Arturo Di Modica is THIS offended. By a statue of a girl. A girl disrupting his ode to testosterone, bull markets and coked-up bros.
Another stupid thing I saw yesterday on Twitter was this topic - recasting movies with no straight white men. It looks like the straight white actors were targeted as a group. So anyone belongs to that group is guilty to those social justice warriors (SJWs). I still remember that I was labelled as a racist because I dared to say Angel Coulby (a POC actress who played Gwen in BBC's Merlin) was not attractive. It seems these people equaled one member of the POC to the whole identity group. So they interpreted my comment as "POC women are not attractive". Also I doubt I would be called a racist if I said Amy Schumer was not attractive, but I probably would be called other things.
The most problematic tendency of today's SJWs is they want to assign people a "social identity", and completely ignore the fact that each individual thinks differently. Let's say I am an Asian Canadian, so they will assume that I am against casting Scarlett Johansson as the lead of Ghost in the Shell. And if you don't agree with them, they will see you as a traitor or an enemy. Many people are bullied into silence, and this is why I find Professor Jordan B. Peterson is heroic.
Finally, I just want to post this video of a transman and how he learned to accept and respect Dr. Peterson.
I first heard about Peterson's name last month when I read the news about a protest against him at McMaster University. I watched the video. It was crazy, the students just didn't want him to continue his speech and chanted "shut him down". Such a scene is similar to what happened during China's Culture Revolution roughly from 1966 to 1976. Those McMaster students reminded me a lot of the Red Guards in the way (1) they were both young and naive students; (2) they believed in the ideologies and did not want to listen to other opinions.
I didn't experience the Culture Revelation myself, but my parents did. My father and uncles even changed their names to something like Wei Dong (means "guarding Chairman Mao") or Xue Dong (means "learning from Chairman Mao"). (They changed their names back after it). I have heard stories about that period from my parents and I watched documentaries. During that period, righties were labelled as one of the "Five Black Types". Radical lefties completely shut down the righties. If one dared to raise different opinions, one would be humiliated in front of the public, and many intellectuals were tortured to death, including my maternal grandfather. It was terrifying.
Now back to the McMaster protest against Dr. Peterson. I read the report and got to know a bit about the backstory. Dr. Peterson is a Psychology professor at the University of Toronto. His controversy started from the YouTube videos he posted last September. Last year, there is a Bill C-16 that proposes adding gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act. Dr. Peterson thinks it is a problem because it was written into the law. In his opinion, the law is not the place you debate things like gender identity. You don't instantiate a particular philosophy into the law. So if this bill passes, if someone is against a transgender woman (like Caitlyn Jenner) to participate in certain women's sport, according to the new law, the person could be charged with violating human rights. In my opinion, that's not so right.
Many people labelled Dr. Peterson's opinions as "hate speech", but after watching his speeches, I can't draw such a conclusion. Dr. Peterson was one of the smartest and the most articulate people I ever watched. Anyway, I feel frustrated with the whole Social Justice and Political Correctness things in today's society. I think I am in the middle, and a bit towards the left. But recently, after witnessing more and more radical lefties' behaviors, I can't stop shaking my heads.
For example, the recent news about the Fearless Girl statue in Manhattan’s Financial District. I first heard about it because Jamie Bell posted a picture of it on the International Women's Day. Some see it as some sort of women's empowerment because the girl was "strategically" placed facing the famous Charging Bull sculpture. Then the Charging Bull's creators wanted the Fearless Girl removed. Many "feminists" automatically took the request as "men against women", but the thing is not that simple. Here is a good article:
(1) The Fearless Girl statue is commissioned by an investing company trying to promote their "Gender Diversity Index Fund". The fund's code is "SHE". There is a bronze plaque that reads: Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference. So it is bacially a PR stunt.
(2) Di Modica, the creator of the Charging Bull sculpture, wanted the city to remove The Fearless Girl because he feels the Fearless Girl changes the meaning of the Charging Bull. Instead of being a symbol of “the strength and power of the American people” as Di Modica intended, it’s now seen as an aggressive threat to women and girls - a symbol of patriarchal oppression.
I think Di Modica does have a point here. But Social Justice Warriors like this gossip site blogger didn't want to hear anything about it. This is the typical reaction.
Nope. Just… nope. He has no f-king case. No one did anything to the Charging Bull. Fearless Girl was just placed in the Bull’s sight line and that doesn’t infringe on any copyright or anything. This actually angers me that Arturo Di Modica is THIS offended. By a statue of a girl. A girl disrupting his ode to testosterone, bull markets and coked-up bros.
Another stupid thing I saw yesterday on Twitter was this topic - recasting movies with no straight white men. It looks like the straight white actors were targeted as a group. So anyone belongs to that group is guilty to those social justice warriors (SJWs). I still remember that I was labelled as a racist because I dared to say Angel Coulby (a POC actress who played Gwen in BBC's Merlin) was not attractive. It seems these people equaled one member of the POC to the whole identity group. So they interpreted my comment as "POC women are not attractive". Also I doubt I would be called a racist if I said Amy Schumer was not attractive, but I probably would be called other things.
The most problematic tendency of today's SJWs is they want to assign people a "social identity", and completely ignore the fact that each individual thinks differently. Let's say I am an Asian Canadian, so they will assume that I am against casting Scarlett Johansson as the lead of Ghost in the Shell. And if you don't agree with them, they will see you as a traitor or an enemy. Many people are bullied into silence, and this is why I find Professor Jordan B. Peterson is heroic.
Finally, I just want to post this video of a transman and how he learned to accept and respect Dr. Peterson.
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