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Any of those arguments would give him a soundbite response to the question asked, and the third would actually be a pretty good response. But he's not even engaged with the ideas of his own camp. He's just stumbling around in the dark.
We see this so often with right-wing celebrity academics. Their scholarly credentials give them cultural access, but once they have that access it becomes clear that they haven't thought seriously about the questions everyone is asking them to comment on.
The obvious way to slip that trap is to just admit ignorance—Peterson could easily have said "that's a question that's way outside my expertise, and I don't have a strong opinion on it"—but admitting ignorance doesn't get you clicks and subscribers.
So Peterson doesn't have an opinion on bakers selling cakes to gay couples, but he knows he's supposed to have an opinion and what that opinion is, so he offers the opinion he's supposed to have.
And the first time he gets pushback he responds definitively, and the second time he does the same thing. And then the interviewer points out that his second answer contradicts the first, and he's stuck.
He's still got an out at this point: He can say that racist acts should be barred by law, but anti-gay acts shouldn't be. And you can see those wheels turning in his head around the 30-second mark. But he doesn't want to say that. So he's stuck.
And again, the reason he's stuck is that he's publicly taken a political position he hasn't thought seriously about and doesn't understand the implications of just because it's the position people in his camp are expected to take.
If only there were someone in Jordan Peterson's world who was able to warn him about the dangers of groupthink and political tribalism.
Getting a fair number of Jordan Peterson fans in my mentions saying he should be applauded for admitting error in the above clip. No.
You don't get points for saying "maybe I was wrong" when any other response will reveal you as a bigot or a buffoon.
Also worth remembering that the intersection of free speech with the civil rights and right to dignity of LGBT people is precisely the place where Peterson first rose to public notoriety.
Peterson is famous precisely because of his public stance on an issue proximally adjacent to the one he was asked about in this clip. It's not like the guy sprung a question on the infield fly rule on him.
Perhaps the error is believing that he is right-wing to begin with
I don’t see how this is responsive to the argument I make in this thread.
I mean, my argument is that he reflexively adopts a right-wing position in this interview because it's what his crew expects of him. If I'm wrong, and the views he expresses are sincere and strongly held, doesn't that make the case that he's a conservative stronger, not weaker?
Man admits mistakes, is branded a charlatan and terrible debater.
"Man admits not knowing what he's talking about, is branded a man who doesn't know what he's talking about."
Well... This is awkward. Where do we go from here?
Forward. Ever forward.
Have you read his book? It truly is a labyrinth of contradictions and rambling pontifications.
It's almost as if they're just dressing up hateful ignorant garbage thoughts in the trappings of intellectualism rather than honestly engaging with the subject matter.
The bar of entry for conservative punditry so absurdly low.
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