But this is an op-ed (by a Canadian journalist named Jesse Brown), and I haven't read it yet, so I don't know if I can recommend it. Hang on a second. Let me live-blog my reading of this thing.
There is a certain image that Canada projects to the world.... It’s the image of Canada as a tolerant, progressive, kind and humanitarian nation, populated by mild-mannered and polite people. The idea of Canada the Good....That's not what the Canadian thinks of his people. It's what he thinks we think. But we are wrong, Brown informs us:
Canada is home to many more Jordan Petersons than Justin Trudeaus. Mr. Peterson is... a dull but stern dad, who, under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense, conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might rock the boat..... This is a mind-set with deep historical roots in the Great White North....If we knew Jordan Peterson the way Canadians know Jordon Peterson, we wouldn't enjoy his bracing pep talks. We'd be like, Oh, Dad, can I go now?
Canadians never rebelled and won independence from Britain, so as history unfolded, Brown says, they ended up with “peace, order and good government” where Americans got “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Our politics reflect our sense of unease with anything radical. Liberals who think of Canada as a lefty haven should look to [various boring things that have happened in Canadian history].... Even our pop culture reflects our national preference for stasis: Drake, the Torontonian rap superstar, is probably best known for introducing ennui to hip-hop.So the Canadian left isn't really very lefty, and the Canadian conservatism is bland too, the message being, essentially...
Canadian conservatism is not brash. It not belligerent [sic], it is not loud. It is not Fox News. But our most popular columnists all deliver the same message: Things are the way they are for a reason. Those who agitate for change are stepping out of line.So please see Peterson's "12 Rules for Life" book in that light. Like Rule 6: “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.”
The message: Until you’ve cleaned your room and achieved perfect personal order, how dare you assume you have any business diagnosing the world’s problems, much less trying to fix them?Ugh! It's so Canadian!
Americans are raised to believe that individuals, even flawed ones, can indeed change the world, and sometimes should. Canadians, for all that we’ve managed to construct a society that Americans sometimes envy, lack this ethic. The resulting mind-set, disdainful of idealism and suspicious of ego, is one we are now, evidently, exporting.It must be so annoying to the Canadian — whose mentality Brown purports to channel to us — that Americans have snapped up so many copies of their boring dad's stifling lectures. Who are these Americans? They're the people all readers of the NYT can look down their noses at: "disaffected men."
But these men are delusional — Brown tells us — if they think Peterson is "walking in the tradition of rugged American individualism." He's not American. He's Canadian, and take it from the Canadian Jesse Brown, Jordan Peterson is "a line-toeing Canadian, preaching a philosophy not of American defiance but of Canadian deference."
Posts
113 comments:
Good to know one guy can speak for an entire country.
“under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense... .” Translation: He’s psycho because he’s conservative. Like Trump.
And I don’t get Althouse’s fixation with phallic symbols. Sometimes a train is just a train. Boys like trains. Girls like horses. Unless, of course, your name is Zoomer.
Re: the art work. His early research was on totalitarian fascism, so I imagine the fascist art has some link to his interest in that era. Those New York Times photo editors are very good at using their art to editorialize, though.
If that's the worst the NYT can throw at him it looks like he is bullet proof.
I should add, he is an art collector and one of his specialties is old Soviet Union posters and such.
"And I don’t get Althouse’s fixation with phallic symbols."
I do.
It's simple: order vs. chaos.
Chaos isn't cool anymore.
Very little will induce me to click the NYTimes these days. I'll take your word for it.
“Better than nothing is a high standard," the motto of Canada.
www.smalldeadanimals.com
You would think that somebody who wants to disrupt life in Canada as Canadians have known it would be happy that he has been denounced for “stepping out of line.” Wouldn’t a better response be “I’m glad you noticed” rather than “I desperately need your approval in this”?
Canadians are protected by two great oceans, a great southern neighbor, and the Great White North. Their mettle is untested. I like Canadians and have them in my family, but I cannot take their politics seriously. Those four Greats don’t allow me to.
The photo behind Peterson (not the one with the border sign) echoes the Op-Eds point. The painting looks like a Stern father and son.
Please, Your Majesty. I know that I, like many other Americans, have behaved like a total buffoon.
But we Americans are England's children.
I know we don't call as often as we should and we aren't as well-behaved as our goody two-shoes brother Canada, who by the way has never had a girlfriend. I'm just saying.
But please, find it in your jewel-encrusted heart to forgive me. That was very sweet of the Queen letting you go in exchange for taking Madonna back to America.
(Madonna) (IN FAKE BRITISH ACCENT) I'm telling you, I'm English.
English women don't pump gas naked.
See you in Atlanta, bitch!
(Simpsons, "Regina Monologues")
Meade: "And I don’t get Althouse’s fixation with phallic symbols." I do.
Now that’s just plain funny.
The elites have been trying to explain the appeal of Jordan Peterson for some time, here's the latest attempt, invoking Canadian stereotypes, apparently drafted by a Canadian (who does or did host a podcast called `Canadaland'). The explanation is more straightforward: Peterson unapologetically stands up for liberal values within a university system that, in Canada as throughout the Western world, seems determined to flush down the toilet its own legacy of free academic inquiry in favour of `diversity' - really the monotony of the neo-socialist, multiculturalist dogma that has a stranglehold on the humanities and social sciences and has been actively weaponizing many students to harass, intimidate, disrupt those with a different opinion. When challenged in debate, be it by a Canadian senator, another law professor, a Channel 4 host, the average SJW, he's decisively turned them back and revealed them to be the true bullies in our society. It is really that simple.
Being born an American, I'm incapable of understanding the Canadian system of explaining everything about someone by where they were born.
It is almost a religious dogma that youth and inexperience is the only way to advance social change. Peterson is directly poking at the foundations of the radical left by pointing out that these inexperienced and noisy kids have really nothing to offer.
Meade:
LOL. I set you up! Ta boom.
Thanks for the Simpson's script excerpt, Fernandistien. You had me saying out loud (before I go to your last line): "Fernandistien is really doing some excellent writing!"
Blogger Meade said...
"And I don’t get Althouse’s fixation with phallic symbols."
I do.
---------------------------------
LOL
Most Canadians that I've met are like Red Green. If you don't know who he is, then you're a hoser.
The Op-Ed was dull, so he is proving his point with a bit of evidence.
Althouse community:
Do not be surprised if Ann takes a 5 minute break for some pressing business this AM.
Like most stereotypes, this guy's description of Canadians probably has some foundation in truth but likely won't survive interactions with a random sample of real Canadians. In my experience with Canadians over many years at work, a better description of the Canadian ethos is the professional hockey player. Smart and polite when off the ice, hard nosed, determined, and plenty willing to drop the gloves to defend himself, his teammates, and the unwritten rules of proper hockey behavior.
-sw
Canada's English-language media bubble is centered on Toronto, where they might not have an accurate view of le Canada profond.
I don’t believe anyone who has interviewed Jordan Petersen has asked him about his Rule 6, set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world, in relation to Donald Trump. Or about his book’s subtitle, “An Antidote to Chaos.” Petersen is here to subvert you, American conservatives.
"Canada's English-language media bubble is centered on Toronto, where they might not have an accurate view of le Canada profond."
Peterson talks about growing up in a remote part of Alberta.
From Wikipedia:
"Peterson was born on June 12, 1962, and grew up in Fairview, Alberta, a small town northwest of his birthplace Edmonton, in Canada. He was the eldest of three children born to Beverley, a librarian at the Fairview campus of Grande Prairie Regional College, and Walter Peterson, a schoolteacher.[10] His middle name is Bernt (/bɛərnt/ BAIRNT), after his Norwegian great-grandfather.[11][12] When he was 13, he was introduced to the writings of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Ayn Rand by his school librarian Sandy Notley – mother of Rachel Notley, leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party and 17th Premier of Alberta.[13] He also worked for the New Democratic Party (NDP) throughout his teenage years, but grew disenchanted with the party due to what he saw as a preponderance of "the intellectual, tweed-wearing middle-class socialist" who "didn't like the poor; they just hated the rich".[10] He left the NDP at age 18.[14]"
“peace, order and good government”
verses
“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
That's just sad. Poor Canada. We should stop by Canada's house and take them out and show them a good time.
Interesting that the lefty mentor pointed him to George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Ayn Rand.
"We know you admire us Canadians because healthcare and stuff, but pay no attention to this clown..."
"Torontonian?"
I find NYT writers reflect everything wrong with the world. NYT writers are like Fox News!
Peterson talks about growing up in a remote part of Alberta.
Mark Steyn has said that Alberta is the only Canadian Province which could become a US state without any great adjustment.
Slightly off-topic but speaking of Canada, Zeus—our neighbors' dog who lives with us part-time—loves it whenever I open the door and sing his special anthem just for him:
O Labrador!
Our home and neighbors' dog!
True canine love in all of us command.
Our glowing hearts you do retrieve,
The True Friend strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Labrador, you stand on guard oui oui.
Zeus keep our homes safe and burglar-free!
O Labrador, you stand on guard—oui oui.
O Labrador, you stand on guard—oui oui.
If Jordan Peterson stood atop mt Olympus and lectured on The Way Things Are—like the writer of this op-ed— he would be confined to a tenured classroom and of little interest. Instead, he paints the picture you wish you could paint of our current landscape..with beauty and authority and courage — and — most importantly—reassures me that I’m not insane after all.
He is my hero. He is Howard Beale at a cooler temp, exhorting me not to take it anymore.
here's my memory of what he said about the art, Althouse. You can dig it up, as your search skills are even better than mine, which aren't shabby...
In the Soviet system, there were lots of tremendous artists who were only allowed to produce product for the regime. If you can see through the ideology to the quality of the artist beneath the propaganda, you have not just saved a work, you have saved a piece of great art and saved evidence of history (no matter how ugly that history may be) simultaneously. In addition, this stuff was ridiculously cheap for the quality of what Peterson thinks he saw in the works he bought. As the rest of us do, he got a bit carried away and bought a boatload of it.
"a dull but stern dad" He is sometimes stern, but hardly dull. Even his college classes on YouTube are lively--certainly above average in delivery, going by my college experience.
"conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might rock the boat." Weird: Peterson is all about rocking the boat. Of course, progs would prefer to throw the likes of him overboard.
"To these types, those who make a fuss are bothersome and ignorant at best, and probably dangerous and destructive too." Huh? Peterson is making the biggest fuss of any academic today, in challenging prog culture and the prog PTB.
The projecting Op-Ed shows how reactionary progs have become. But then, Will to Power is all.
Oh, and here's a tutorial in case any of you would like to learn to play along on piano as we sing out our praises for our glorious Zeus the Labrador.
And for you pesky francophones:
O Labrador!
Le chien de la maison et des voisins!
Le véritable amour canin en chacun de nous commande.
Nos cœurs brillants que vous récupérez,
Le Vrai ami fort et libre!
De loin et de loin,
O Labrador, vous êtes sur vos gardes, oui.
Zeus garde nos maisons sûres et sans cambriolage!
O Labrador, vous êtes sur vos gardes, oui.
O Labrador, vous êtes sur vos gardes, oui.
Or you could sing it to this tune:
Schubert An die Musik
Oh, and here's a tutorial in case any of you would like to learn to play along on piano as we sing out our praises for our glorious Zeus the Labrador.
Hail Zeus! At this rate, the McKenzie brothers will drop in any minute. I've heard that they're a couple of hosers.
Any mud they can sling at Mr. Peterson. He is smart enough to debate them to a stand still, he believes and has enough credentials to not be dismissed out of hand, and he tends to be a traditionalist because...DUH...these traditional systems of society are pretty much the same across disparate successful cultures, albeit imperfect.
He scares the yoga pants off the Left.
After that Channel 4 fiasco, where the assertion that the Left deserved free speech but Mr. Peterson did not was shown as the fake double standard that it is, they will NEVER put him on television again (outside of Fox News, perhaps).
Instead you have these faux interviews, which are soft hit pieces, trying to separate the man from his fan base and to discredit him to the undecided.
Note the adjectives used: dull, boring, dad, traditionalist, not radical.
They try very hard to paint a man who isn't WORTH looking into.
Unfortunately, a lot of the readership knows the tricks of media at this point. I am teaching them to my kids.
He has MILLIONS of youtube hits for a reason.
Every time I see Peterson he is under intense attack, which is often unhinged and near violent, and even when civilized, relentless and angry. He always maintains and argues effectively. The people who challenge him could never do any of that, and would crumble under the same type of assault on their arguments. I find him impressive, but his adversaries are mostly weak-minded with positions born of emotion and the current fads cloaked in false intellectualism. His enemies are legion but unarmed. A hoard of zombies he easily dispatches one after another as they attack in great numbers using their only real tactic: swarming.
Isn't this usually the dynamic with the culture war? Conservatives are almost always confronted by groups, crowds, many on one, volume over substance, yelling, protesting, swarming and chanting of unexamined emotional pleas and demands, often nonsensical, but always loud and indignant.
Labradors make lousy watchdogs. They will hold the flashlight for the burglar for a pat on the head. Still they are great dogs, but it’s their snoring that makes me sleep well at night, not their protective prowess.
Hard eye-roll at "...like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Emma Gonzales." Yup, their journeys were basically the same. I get them confused all the time.
I can't wait until the world forgets what's-her-name and we can go back to deifying people who have actually done something more than being a puppet for wealthy progressive foundations.
"Labradors make lousy watchdogs."
Be that as it may, don't tell them that. It could give them hurt feelings. They're famously sensitive (and soft-mouthed).
That is some nutty artwork and he's posing on the chair arm with an arm akimbo
This sentence prompted me to research the word akimbo.
I found a long article by Anatoly Liberman, whose Wikipedia article about him begins as follows:
-----
... a professor in the Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch at the University of Minnesota, where since 1975 he has taught courses on the history of all the Germanic languages and literatures, folklore, mythology, lexicography, European structuralism and Russian formalism. He has published works on Germanic historical phonetics, English etymology, mythology/folklore, the history of philology, and poetic translation. He publishes a blog, “The Oxford Etymologist”.
He is an advocate of spelling reform.
-----
Liberman's article about the etymology of the word akimbo is titled "Akimbo: An Embarrassment of Riches" and is published on the Oxford University Press's Blog.
https://blog.oup.com/2009/02/akimbo/
As I said, the article is long. Here is a taste from its middle.
[quote]
Akimbo surfaced as in kenebowe (1400). More than two centuries later the variants a kenbol(l) ~ a kenbold appeared. ...
The Icelandic words kimbill, kimpill, and kimbli “bundle of hay; hillock,” once compared with akimbo, exist. According to some old dictionaries, they mean “the handle of a pot or jug,” but they do not. Their root is related to Engl. comb and was used in Germanic for coining the names of fastenings, barrel staves, and so forth.
However, similar words (kimble, kemmel, and many others), designating various vessels (not handles), are current in modern British English and Swedish dialects. For this reason, Ernest Weekley set up Middle Engl. kimbo “pot ear, pitcher handle.” The metaphor, from a pitcher with two handles to a person with hands akimbo, is perfect and widespread.
In kenebowe may have been a conscious translation of the French phrase en anses “on the handles,” as Weekley says, but why is it so different from present day Engl. akimbo, especially if we remember that Middle Engl. kimbo has been reconstructed rather than recorded and that 17th century authors knew kembol(l). What happened to final –l? Weekley did not provide an answer to those questions.
Akembol could not develop from in kenebowe in a natural way. More likely, it was a product of folk etymology, perhaps indeed under the influence of the names of pots and jugs.Akimbo surfaced as in kenebowe (1400).
[end quote]
Besides, Zeus has a fierce bark. We have had exactly zero rabbity burglars or squirrely home invaders since he moved in 6 years ago. QED!
Akembol could not develop from in kenebowe in a natural way. More likely, it was a product of folk etymology,
LOL Do these guys even read what they write?
Brown isn’t wrong about Canada, though it’s a very Ontario-centric view of Canada. But remember, Ontario has well over 1/3 of Canada’s population, about 1/3 of the seats in the House and 1/4 of the Senate. There’s no comparable US state.
*In my experience with Canadians over many years at work, a better description of the Canadian ethos is the professional hockey player. Smart and polite when off the ice, hard nosed, determined, and plenty willing to drop the gloves to defend himself, his teammates, and the unwritten rules of proper hockey behavior.* I think of any blanket description of Canadians that I have heard, this is the most accurate (saying this as a Canadian).
I did not realize that Peterson was from Alberta, Canada’s most dynamic Province, but I am not surprised.
"Smart and polite when off the ice, hard nosed, determined, and plenty willing to drop the gloves to defend himself, his teammates, and the unwritten rules of proper hockey behavior."
Trumpian!
individuals, even flawed ones, can indeed change the world
Well, maybe this author should read a bit of Shakespeare, ALL of whose heroes were flawed.
But then, Shakespeare wasn't Canadian.
Looks like the Denver International Airport.
Not all Canadians are NDP types. Before Peterson was known there was David Warren.
On a comparison of Gorbachev and Obama:
On the other hand, some interesting comparisons could be made between the thuggish party machine of Chicago, which raised Obama as its golden boy; and the thuggish party machine of Moscow, which presented Gorbachev as it’s most attractive face.
Both men have been praised for their wonderful temperaments, and their ability to remain unperturbed by approaching catastrophe. But again, the substance is different, for Gorbachev’s temperament was that of a survivor of many previous catastrophes.
Yet they do have one major thing in common, and that is he belief that, regardless of what the ruler does, the polity he rules must necessarily continue. This is perhaps the most essential, if seldom acknowledged, insight of the post-modern “liberal” mind: that if you take the pillars away, the roof will continue to hover in the air.
Thank god for Trump.
"Smart and polite when off the ice, hard nosed, determined, and plenty willing to drop the gloves to defend himself, his teammates, and the unwritten rules of proper hockey behavior."
Keep your stick on the ice.
Speaking as a Whig or libertarian Canadian, Jesse Brown is a journalist due to nepotism so it's funny how he complains about stasis.
Canada is very left wing country, we are very bureaucratic, things are dull here because The State is in total control and doesn't want dynamic society.
Other than obvious laws against murder, rape or robbery, America's First Amendment is finest law ever written because it allows people to say and do things that are prohibited by all other governments around the world.
How do you make that "arm akimbo"? My understanding is that arms akimbo ( as it is usually expressed) is hands on hips.
Thanks, mezzrow!
He obviously didn’t read the book before he decided to avail us of his superior wisdom.
Rule 6 would be a great US foreign policy, at least since the end of the Cold War, no? And if we'd adopted it before World War I, would we have even had to worry about WWII or the Cold War?
A great irony is that the US changed the name of the War Department to Defense Dept. just as it adopted the policy of endless little wars far from our borders. Now even the suggestion that the Defense Department has any role to play in literally defending our borders is treated as deepest heresy by the Deep State.
ballyfager: How do you make that "arm akimbo"? My understanding is that arms akimbo ( as it is usually expressed) is hands on hips.
I was surprised to find that this is actually the dictionary definition of "akimbo" - with hands on hips.
The first time I encountered the expression was in reference to an old west gunfighter - arms bent, but with the hands hovering near, but most definitely not touching, the guns on his belt.
So I always just took it as arms bent.
I thought arms akimbo involved flailing before hands were placed on hips, I learn something new every day.
How in the world can Leftism, "that herd of independent minds", that marches in lockstep and enforces PC censorship be "radical" or "independent" or "Exciting"?
The Left-wing simply wants a more Left-wing Canada. Which would be about as "Free-wheeling" as the USSR.
Petersen isn't a conservative, but anyone who's non-Left, gets labeled as such. I see leftists are even calling Scott Adams a "Right winger" which is certainly isn't.
Canada has always been a hierarchical society. You had a few big banks controlling the finance sector, and a powerful centralized government. There's never been any pushback, because the average Canadian likes it that way. Like Japan or Dennmark, it all works because the average Frenchie/Anglo works hard and doesn't mind paying lots of taxes. Just give 'em some Hockey on TV, and some Canadian Beer and they're happy.
Across Canada it has its regions like the USA has its regions. But Ontario has always been the dominate part of Canada's Manufacturing, Government, Education, Entertainment and Arts. It grew up as a trading extension with the Buffalo, New York markets (i.e., Erie Canal), and has maintained a fierce distaste for that barely civilized American cultural colossus to the south.
If you have a chance, take several days to enjoy the plays at Stratford, Ontario's Festival. It is professionally done and better than Broadway. Stratford is about half way from Toronto to Michigan. The season runs from May to November. Just be polite, and remember calling yourself "American" implies that the USA owns all of North America
“It's simple: order vs. chaos.
Chaos isn't cool anymore.”
So the Trump Presidency is no longer cool with you folks? Good to know.
Looks like he's on a national tour. At the Ryman June 11 with tickets going from $57 to $107 and VIP meet and greet for $202. All is USD, I think. Might go.
Just for INga to read.
Scott Pruitt is the greatest-ever Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. To be fair, though, the competition was never exactly stiff. The bar was set low right from the start, under the Nixon-era administrator William Ruckelshaus.
Ruckelshaus is best known for his decision to ban the use of the insecticide DDT in the US. This, in turn, led to a near-global ban which deprived the world of its most effective prophylactic against the malarial mosquito, arguably causing millions of unnecessary deaths.
But what was perhaps most shocking about Ruckelshaus’s decision was that it ran roughshod over science and due process. At the time, the EPA had just finished a seven-month hearing under Judge Edmund Sweeney concluding in a 9,000-page document that DDT was essentially harmless to humans and wildlife. Ruckelshaus decided to go with the green activists rather than the scientific evidence and banned it anyway.
And so it went until now.
So the Trump Presidency is no longer cool with you folks? Good to know.
Well, we're not the cool kids.
It's cute when Inga tries to be clever.
Somebody give her a treat.
That's a good girl.
Inga: I think you misread. Anti-chaos is the mantra from the librul effete MSM. What's interesting about Peterson is he is not a conservative, he labels himself a classic British Liberal. In that way, his message is quite subversive to the left and the right. It shows the dichotomy of humanity where the same people who buy into Trump are also swept up by a liberal college professor psychologist. I don't know about you, but I think it's good. Peterson converts MSM reporters into coal mine canaries gasping for breath in his presence showing just how shallow and ignorant they are. He also sheds light on the Trump phenomenon as a response to the corruption of media, government and global corporatism. I like to denigrate Trumpists because he is a New York elite ladies man con artist who sells sizzle, not steak. However, the bullshit has become so thick it takes a court jester to successfully ridicule the ruling class of demi-gods and red queens.
I've said this before: Don't listen to Peterson excerpts, they are clipped out so someone with an axe to grind can leverage their preverted idiotology using Peterson as the fulcrum. His full lectures are online. Context is important because if JP is a preacher, his sermon is anti-ideology, pro-human mythology.
tcrosse: You guys are the cool kids on this blog. You all act like deranged white cells attacking every single alternative view in the same way the MSM swarms all over Trump and Peterson.
tim in vermont said...
Akembol could not develop from in kenebowe in a natural way. More likely, it was a product of folk etymology,
LOL Do these guys even read what they write?
4/6/18, 8:51 AM
It makes sense to me, what am I missing?
Canadian here. There's a story about how, when Canada was formed as a nation, they wanted it to have British Politics, French Culture and American Know-How.
Instead, they ended up with British Know-How, American Culture and French Politics.
As far as the columnists being conservative, only in the things they know. You'd be surprised at how many of them are related to each other. Rather than acknowledge that they are nepotistic, they deflect this to rail against (other) white people.
Except for people in Quebec. They can be a racist as they want to be.
Except for people in Quebec. They can be a racist as they want to be.
My French-Canadian grandfather expressed his virulent anti-semitism in the Language of Moliere, so it went unnoticed.
Subject serf
Vs
Citizen
...a dull but stern dad, who, under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense, conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might rock the boat....
Always agitating those lefties always rebelling against daddy while becoming one to others. Can’t live up to them do you have to break them down.
If it’s so boring, Brown, leave. Venezuela should offer some excitement.
You didn't even blog the best (worst?) line!
"But in practice, it’s actually an argument for submission to the status quo that would have prevented any number of people, from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Emma Gonzales, from ever speaking up."
There is zero comparison between Dr. Martin Luther King and Emma Gonzales and this is exactly Jordan Peterson's point. Emma Gonzales has not earned the right to be mentioned in this sentence.
Howard said...
Don't listen to Peterson excerpts, they are clipped out so someone with an axe to grind can leverage their preverted idiotology using Peterson as the fulcrum. His full lectures are online. Context is important because if JP is a preacher, his sermon is anti-ideology, pro-human mythology.
tcrosse: You guys are the cool kids on this blog. You all act like deranged white cells attacking every single alternative view in the same way the MSM swarms all over Trump and Peterson.
You seem capable.
Apply yourself to these quotes.
Hint: He also sheds light on the Trump phenomenon as a response to the corruption of media, government and global corporatism.
It took about 30 years for the white blood cells to reach their current state. Even then during the 8 year hiatus in the 80's the swamp was quite in effect.
If it wasn’t for US having the King’s English in common, Canada would have ceased to exist decades or a century or more ago.
I read an article years ago about Canada and in it was quoted a prominent Canadian saying something like the 18th century might belong to the Americans but the 19th century will belong to the Canadians. They will sit astride....still waiting!
Right now they have 1 thing we need, water. Build the pipelines!
More reading material for Inga.
When this comes down, it is going to be ugly for the Clinton Crime Family.
5/ on Tue, Aug 2, Lisa inquired at 12:04 UTC about Strzok's morning meeting. Details redacted. Lisa was impressed though: "Whoa." She reminded Strzok to make sure he can "lawfully" conceal ("protect") information from congress, FOIA. Strzok wasn't worried.
They are now cooperating with Huber in Utah.
I don't think you and your apologists on this blog quite get the anti-ideology Peterson preaches, Achilles. Left-Right, order-chaos, yin-yang... do the evolution
"Brown isn’t wrong about Canada, though it’s a very Ontario-centric view of Canada. But remember, Ontario has well over 1/3 of Canada’s population, about 1/3 of the seats in the House and 1/4 of the Senate. There’s no comparable US state."
It's more concentrated than even that implies. About 1/5 of the population of the entire country is concentrated in a tiny band around the northwestern end of Lake Ontario:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Toronto_and_Hamilton_Area#/media/File:GTHA_map.png
There is, as you say, nothing comparable. And even more than an Ontario-centric view, it's a GTA-centric view. The split between "Northern Ontario" -considered to be a hinterland of sorts - and "Southern Ontario" - the economic engine of the province - has its effective border around the city of Barrie. Check that out on a map, and marvel at just how focused things are in Ontario.
Jesse Brown is, more than anything, a media critic. His criticisms of Peterson are apt. Peterson did rise to prominence on a fear he pretty much made up in his own head, and just as in America, pushes against "political correctness" are sometimes aptly seen as pushes against forward social momentum.
Jesse Brown may be Canadian, but he's definitely not forthcoming, eh?
"it’s worth remembering that this image of Canada, currently personified by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is a relatively recent construction"
Mr Trudeau's father was an elitist playboy who married... shall we say a goofy development-arrested woman 30 years his junior who was 18 when he met her. Justin's contribution to "Canada the Good" follows soundly in the goofy traditon of his mother.
I can tell you that many, many Canadians, at least since the 60s, thought of themselves as "Canada the Good," in comparison to the US Imperialists.
"Canada is home to many more Jordan Petersons than Justin Trudeaus."
Debatable, take a walk down Bloor Street in Toronto and ask a few people some political questions. Say, about socialized health care, pronouns, CAGW, multi-culturalism or firearms.
"Pierre Trudeau might have technically been a liberal, but he was the kind of liberal who declared martial law in 1970"
Pierre Trudeau's good friend Fidel Castro, might technically have been a socialist, but Castro was the kind of socialist who tortures political prisoners. Pierre Trudeau was no a liberal, despite the name of the party he headed. He was a tyrant within the bounds, barely, of Canadian culture.
"the New Democratic Party, ostensibly the major party farthest to the left, ran its last campaign on a platform of balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility."
That's like our Democrats saying "We don't want to take your guns." Look at the disaster that is Ontario for NDP governing principles. The NDP is far left by our standards. Even the conservative party is the "Progressive Conservatives."
"Not even the Green Party dares to suggest divesting from Alberta’s oil sands."
No, they just block the pipeline construction needed to sell that oil and are wholly supportive of a punitive carbon tax Justin Trudeau is pushing.
"Canadian conservatism is not brash. It not belligerent, it is not loud. It is not Fox News."
True, Canadian conservatism is more like Joe Lieberman Democrats.
"The proposed human rights policy that made Mr. Peterson famous is now Canadian law, and no instance of “compelled speech” has occurred as a result of it or resulted in criminal charges, as Mr. Peterson feared. On the issue of legal requirements for pronoun use, things remain the way Mr. Peterson wanted them — the same."
No charges yet, but Jesse Brown deftly ignores Lindsay Shepherd's experience at Wilfred Laurier University, where she was threatened with that very law for showing her class a video snippet of Jordan Peterson from an Ontario public television current events show.
Mike K quoting another Canadian classic liberal conservatives love. Good Knowledge, Doc! I wish you were right and the Clintons were going to jail, but that will never happen... the swamp is the Marianas Trench
Yet at one time Montreal was the financial centre of Canada.
The first time I heard Peterson speak I thought that he was a guy I used to work with -- the tone of his voice, his word choices, his accent were nearly identical to a physicist/engineer I knew about a decade ago. The guy I knew was from Montana, so I put Peterson into the cowboy category, not the Canadian category.
This is why people who are anchored into a rigid point of view (any rigid point of view) are inherently uninteresting.
Show them a picture of someone who is "bad" according to the lore of their in-group, and they will twist themselves into knots finding ways to prove it is so.
Nobody is perfect. Everybody has flaws. One of the worst flaws is righteous certainty. It renders a person unable to question zir beliefs in an honest fashion.
(I put in that "zir" just to make Jordan Peterson chuckle if he happens to read this.)
"His early research was on totalitarian fascism, so I imagine the fascist art has some link to his interest in that era. Those New York Times photo editors are very good at using their art to editorialize, though."
I do find it funny many found it risible Jay Carney would hang Soviet art in his home, but for Peterson it's a-okay.
And yes, I do understand the differences between the political nature of both men.
Jane gets it. You have to be part Crazy to be anti-fragile.
just as in America, pushes against "political correctness" are sometimes aptly seen as pushes against forward social momentum.
I think we disagree on the direction, snark.
Howard, you may be right. Crime does pay if it is on a large enough scale.
Trump, as flawed as he is, is the last chance for freedom. Everybody else, on both sides, is on the take.
tcrosse: You guys are the cool kids on this blog. You all act like deranged white cells attacking every single alternative view in the same way the MSM swarms all over Trump and Peterson.
Howard, what do viruses seek from cells except to invade and infect? Don't take the analogy too personally.
Exactly Mock. Peterson is a stealth virus infecting conservatives with his classic liberalism using anti-PC as a lipid bi-layer.
I love Canada. I got a blowjob in Montreal in an alley when I was like 15, traveling through for drum corps. Toronto is fab too. And Quebec City-amaze. I like Winnipeg too and Sault Saint Marie and Kitchener and Vancouver. Calgary and Alberta are kind of like Texas, without the religious nuts.
Even conservatives in Canada are cool with gays. So much different than the gay hating conservatives in the U.S.
"I think we disagree on the direction, snark."
Excessive insistence on "political correctness" does of course stifle some good and necessary things. However some forms of the pushback is undeniably used as the last refuge of people who want to hang on to their selective ignorance and various prejudices, or at least stick up for others who might like to do that. At some point it's just time for a society to stop making room for old thinking under some dogmatic instantiation of "freedom". Freedom is a practical thing, a living and evolving thing, and a way of being in your society and moving through the world. We aren't free to do some of the things generations before us were free to do, and in the same way those adaptations were painful, strange and uncomfortable for those people, they are uncomfortable and strange and alarming for some now. Jordan seems to want protection from ever being forced to feel uncomfortable, which is pretty damn ironic, no?
Peterson is a stealth virus infecting conservatives with his classic liberalism using anti-PC as a lipid bi-layer.
I think you may not realize that conservatism is Classical Liberalism.
The Progressives are as far from Classical Liberalism as Hitler or Mussolini were.
the last refuge of people who want to hang on to their selective ignorance and various prejudices,
Excellent. You have just the right tone of ignorant condescension.
Thank you, snark.
"Jordan seems to want protection from ever being forced to feel uncomfortable, which is pretty damn ironic, no?"
This is about as wrong as it is possible to be, Mr. Snark. The people in America who want "protection from ever being forced to feel uncomfortable" are the people who endorse "politically correct" speech & actions. We are talking, not about Peterson, but people who have strong emotional responses to anglos wearing sombreros on Hallowe'en.
My husband was a British Liberal. Of course, the Liberal Party has been eclipsed for many decades by the Tories and the Labour Party.
Howard said...
I don't think you and your apologists on this blog quite get the anti-ideology Peterson preaches, Achilles. Left-Right, order-chaos, yin-yang... do the evolution.
I completely and totally understand the anti-ideology Peterson preaches. It is hilarious you think we are ideologues. Trump is as far from ideologue as you can get. The ideologues are the caricature conservatives pushed by the media. The only thing worse than a DC democrat is a DC republican.
I have been pro-gay marriage longer than Titus has been alive. Not as long as Trump has been pro-gay marriage but only because I haven't been alive that long. I have grown tons of marijuana. In the literal sense. Multiples of 2000 pounds. I believe in freedom in the classical sense.
The actual republican voters out here in the wilderness away from the acela corridor don't really care about all that crap. They care about a government that is purposely destroying the middle class and that Trump is trying to save the middle class.
This whole tiff is about class. The aristocracy has been trying to correct the historical mistake of the United States since it's inception. We are not ready to become serf's again.
"Torontonian?" I believe the correct term is "Tarantulans."
"Torontonian?" I believe the correct term is "Tarantulans."
That's the Ontological Argument.
Peterson's daughter is named Mikhaila, after Mikhail Gorbachev. That must say something about why he's got all that Soviet art.
@Lewis Wetzel said - You aren't wrong. Alberta is Canadian cowboy country.
Thanks Achilles, that was a real nice post.
20-30 years ago I followed Canadian politics and always felt sorry for those in the Canadian West. The liberals would get all the Quebec Votes and once you threw in Ontario the election would be over, before Alberta and BC even got to vote.
I was always hoping BC/Alberta/Saskatchewan and Manitoba would break off and form their own country - but they never did. Too Canadian.
" Jordan Peterson is 'a line-toeing Canadian, preaching a philosophy not of American defiance but of Canadian deference.' "
Odd thing to say about a guy who is notorious for not toeing the line and defying the Ontario government.
Since so many media types are flummoxed by Jordan Peterson's rise to prominence, you'd think that at least one or two of them would take a few minutes to talk to someone that's read Peterson's books and liked them. They might come up with some reasons that are more accurate than their empty and silly speculations.
>>Peterson's daughter is named Mikhaila, after Mikhail Gorbachev
I think she is named after one of Peterson's research partners at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, Dr. Michaéla Schippers. They have worked collaboratively since the early 90's, including on this fairly recent paper in "Nature": https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201514
I could be wrong, I admit.
Meade
Love your Oh Canada parody (especially given my late mom's very late Lab who thought swimming in Lake Michigan off Washington Island was Doggie Heaven).
But I still prefer On Wisconsin, badgers and all.
Ann - the original comment sounds exactly right.
Back in the day, when that moron Bush got elected, I looked at what it’d take to immigrate to Canada. And I was about to pull the trigger (yes, I know), despite the horrible little knives-all-day I’d have invited as a Yank in Canadia, but I just couldn’t get past the fact that it’s a big country that’s always been at least all right, economically, with all mod cons, and it’s not a new country, and yet there’s no literary establishment beyond Peggy (and, much later, Alice). And I was like, something’s wrong here. There’s no literature. I mean there is a whole Can Lit thing but you have to be a propagandist to read most of that and say it was time well spent. The word “insipid” floats to the top. (I don’t care, it’s true.) And then you look at the ones who really could write, apart from Alice — Mavis Gallant, and Joseph Skvorecky, and Mordecai Richler, and Robertson Davies, and a handful of others — and either they fled the country as soon as they were able or they weren’t really Canadians to begin with; they just lived there. Except Davies, who wrote one really spectacular book and phoned a lot of others in.
And after a while I got it: you’re not allowed to say the things that are necessary if you want worthwhile art. You’re forever in the stifling parlor. So I said, okay, forget it, I’ll take the murderous loons with the mega dreams and the manifest destinies and the inescapable slave horrors and the streets of gold that once in a while are actually streets of gold, though usually you just die in the gutter unloved. I’ve lived here too long, I’m not cut out for parlors and settees and all that.
So sure, absolutely, ol Jordan’s gonna bust a nut if the ladies don’t get back in line, and probably the whole thing will manifest in ectoplasm and seances or something else quasi-Episcopalian at the end. Or at least getting blind drunk and falling out the front door after forgetting that he took the front steps down out of spite. And the Yanks misread it all as some kind of cross among Cotton Mather, and Father Coughlin, and Kellogg, which he definitely is not.
Spite. That’s his currency, isn’t it.
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