I'm not really convinced Peterson offers a compelling alternative masculinity either? He seems to be quite a traditionalist, though I agree with most points advanced in the thread. Which is actually what I find so frustrating about him as a figure. I think we really need icons...
there is a conflict of values involved here and I want to discuss that separately only after I discuss whether or not Peterson's position ought to be interpreted as exclusionary
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is it exclusionary to unintentionally insult someone? and if intentional? what does it mean to exclude? is it reasonable to expect it's a persons right to not be offended? if that is their right, then how do we determine which offenses are legitimate and which aren't?
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you can see how problematic these questions become. it's a deep rabbit hole and there are no good answers down there. lots of booby traps though. that's the reason Peterson objected to it. He saw the bill as creating a perverse law enforcement environment prone to abuse.
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a faction of transgender activists interpreted his objection as being motivated by transphobia and they reacted, quite vigorously, to his objection. much of what's out there on the internet about Peterson was from that initial activist reaction. in my opinion it was a smear.
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do I know if Peterson is actually transphobic? of course I don't know. I can only interpret his public statements. I have never seen him say anything negative _about_ transpersons. I have seen him say things in support of the real mental health issues of transpersons.
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the other thing, about conflict of values, that really deserves a longer discussion but I'll say my piece in just a couple of tweets
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Freedom and Safety are conflicting values in a lot of circumstances. It requires judgment, pragmatism, and humility to decide which value ought to win when they conflict and it's easy to get wrong.
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My own politics come down heavily in favor of Freedom, but then I have a biased perspective of having lived in an environment where my Safety was never really at issue but my Freedom was. The main force threatening my Freedom has been bad laws and bad government.
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Do I find it reasonable that people who have not had my blessings and have lived with less safety than I have would favor legislating for safety? Yes I find that reasonable. Do I find it reasonable to consider offensive speech as a legitimate threat to safety? Almost never.
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I disagree with Peterson on a lot of stuff but I strongly agree with him on considering it an unreasonable infringement on freedom to start declaring various mundane speech acts criminal because they might hurt someone's feelings.
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Note that this is VERY different than, for example, legislation regulating FORMAL (i.e. not mundane) speech acts, such as the language used in government documentation that has legal weight to it.
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I could say a lot more and maybe one day I'll blog about it or something but for now that's where I'll leave it. Last thing to note is just that smear campaigns work by draining nuance out of the discussion and they succeeded here. I'm trying to bring some nuance back.
End of conversation
New conversation -
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