I have just been lectured in a YouTube comment about how I, and all of us leftist college professors, are examples of Professor Peterson’s warnings about the misuse of American tax dollars in support of the Cultural Marxist tactic of “critical theory,” by which they intend to destroy Western Civilization in order to make all of us live like they do in Venezuela and North Korea
. Therefore I must post this video.
I’m a product of “Western Civilization”, I live within it and benefit from it, and think the economic chaos in Venezuela is tragic and destructive, and no sane person would want to live under North Korea’s totalitarianism. Jordan Peterson is utterly bonkers, and his fans are all infected with a serious case of the stupids.
P.S. Did you know Karl Marx is also a product of “Western Civilization”, and that he was not a post-modernist?
Karl Marx was not a post-modernist ? I wasn’t even aware he was a painter.
I’m more of a surrealist myself.
Jordan Peterson still tosses out word salad with croutons of traditional conservative blather.
Marx was *literally* a modernist. As in, that which postmodernism rose to critique. He really doesn’t know jack shit, does he?
@DLC
#1
I have a low tolerance of Jordan Peterson, what kind of painting did Peterson mention? It would be ironic if it were Abstract Expressionism, as the CIA supported the movement. So it was not only not cultural Marxism, it was cultural capitalism.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
And “Peterast”? Nice touch.
Cultural Marxism doesn’t exist.
It’s just an insult using Marxist as a scary sounding word.
As soon as you see that insult, you know you are dealing with an idiot.
I am definitely going to use “Peterast”.
Isn’t “cultural marxism” the wingnut echo chamber blithering on about how “socialist” the States is ? Or similar, such as now dangerously “left” the dummies (democrats) are; or, similar to the usage quoted in the OP, The amount of “mind-control” / “indoctrination” done by universities, schools, teachers, and education-in-general ?
</snark>(Fully-indoctrinated mind-controlled left- / progressive-leaning, person living in the (cultural marxist’s imagined) socialist near-utopia† of surrender-monkey France snail-eaters. With a cheese-indoctrinated, mind-bending, mildly deranged penguin known to be about.)
† Unless you happen to be Roma (as one example) — Unfortunately, not a snark…
The title here reminds me of this Pharyngula classic.
My understanding is that “cultural marxism” is real, in the sense that it has an academic usage, and came out of work by those involved with the Frankfurt School, but that its modern use by people like this is basically meaningless, basically referring to a conspiracy to destroy “western culture” whatever that means.
@8 That is true.
The Frankfort School is obscure to the vast majority of people who aren’t in that field.
The modern usage of Cultural Marxist means, “people I hate”.
It’s a meaningless insult.
@ raven, #9
I disagree. “Cultural Marxist” is rich with meaning. It either means that the person throwing it around is willing to uncritically repeat Nazi propaganda, or that they really mean ‘teh Jews’ but are savvy enough to recognize that many (most, I hope) people frown on antisemitic conspiracy-theorizing.
Ah, but Petersen is complaining about Neo-Marxist Post Modernism. Which I assumed he thinks was created by the North Korean Propaganda Ministry, so it’s not Western at all.
Interesting that Peterson gave away the key to his (and the “alt-right’s”) whole schtick, by claiming that if you can present yourself as a victim, you can get away with anything. Yet what do he and they do more consistently than anythnig else? Present themselves as the victims of liberal/leftist persecution in the form of “political correctness”, “cultural Marxism”, “virtue signalling”, “misandry”, “white genocide”…
“Cultural Marxist” is (apart from a very specific academic usage) a rightwing buzzword, which is a repackaging of the Nazi propaganda buzzword Cultural Bolshevik/ism.
Kristi Winters had an interesting hangout recently where they discussed Peterson’s nonsense Prager U video where he does specifically associate Karl Marx (big image of Marx on a red background) with post-modernism and Kristi repeatedly makes the point that Marx presented Capitalism as part of a broad historical narrative of labour and production, i.e. an explicitly Modernist take.
Inherent in Peterson’s rejection of anything vaguely leftist is his rejection of key values stemming from the Enlightenment (liberté, égalité, fraternité – in his video, it’s diversity, equity, inclusion) which he for some bewildering reason considers Marxist and post-modernist (the French revolution happened, as far as I can ascertain, before Karl Marx was born, both before any post-modernist painting or philosophy was created).
Damn fool.
=8)-DX
@ =8)-DX, #13
There’s way more to consider about Peterson’s use of equity, diversity & inclusion as I harangued cartomancer about in response to a question.
PS. That “X” is a bow tie, right? I’ve always been interpreting it as the bow tie.
Peterson’s nonsense about Marx being a post-modernist reminds me of this Monty Python sketch. He’d be just as perplexed if the quiz had been on deconstruction and intertextuality!
Somewhat off-topic, but in @6 I briefly mentioned the appalling bigotry against the Roma in France. This is a Europe-wide problem, and now for a very recent exhibit, this one from Italy’s new facist “government”:
(Based on a comment by SC in poopyhead’s current Political Madness All the Time thread.)
I have almost decided to just ignore people who use the phrase “Western Civilisation” from now on. In fact I’m pretty close to just ignoring people who use “civilisation” in the singular, and thus presume it’s one, simple, culturally universal thing.
In an act of tremendous magnanimity from a British classicist, I will, however, overlook the frightful habit of spelling it with a “z” that you transatlantic types seem to entertain. It’s almost as if you’re allowed your own distinct cultural foibles and values or something, rather than operating solely and narrowly within an inherited tradition that stems entirely from Latin roots.
cartomancer,
We spells ’em like we hears ’em.
I can attest that indeed I have written more reprimands because kids threw snowballs than for any other misbehaviour in school. It is indeed forbidden in many countries and has been for quite a while. Not because of some sinister conspiracy to put down boys, but because kids get hurt. When I was in primary school a kid in the next village lost her eye. During breaks kids will try to scoop up all the snow and quickly get to the gravel.
Since teachers are in loco parentis they have the responsibility during that time and since those are not your kids, you will have to be three times as strict. I doubt that Jordan Peterson would have been ok if the school had called him to tell him that his precious little boy just lost an eye, but it will be no doubt healthy for his masculinity.
Badly. Except in cases like place names, where, as an example, the First Nation’s names were simply ignored.
(Obviously, I am exaggerating.)
─────────────────────────
On the s vs z, u or not to u, and other spelling — and pronunciation — I myself tend to do it both ways, often in the same sentence / paragraph, despite whichever way the spelling “corrector” is set. The guiding “rule” is, barring other considerations, simply what my inner-voice “hears” at the time (I do imagine a slight difference in the pronunciation of “color” and “colour”, as an example, but I’m inconsistent about it).
An example would be “clew”, which is an archaic spelling of what is now commonly spelled “clue”. I (imagine?) hearing “clew”, not however “clue” would be phonically pronounced. And the spelling is not actually too archaic. Conan Doyle, for instance, used “clew” in some of his Sherlock Holmes stories (which is, as it happens, where I learned of this alternative and more obvious (in my opinion) spelling).
Different meanings of the same word is a whole different ghoti kettle.
#17, #18, the spelling argument even carries over into jointly produced TV programs.
A joint BBC and PBS production, using the civilisations/civilization spellings for the title in their respective countries. A nine-part series on the history of art and its place in our societies.
So makeup is necessarily an imitation of sexual arousal, it is argued, because blush and lipstick happen to resemble the flush of such. Okay then… what about lipstick of different colours? They don’t resemble that flush at all, and hence cannot be done in reference to sexual arousal. How about eyeliner? Unless I am greatly mistaken, eyes do not spontaneously gain a coloured line at the base of the eyelashes, so I guess that’s another item of makeup that cannot possibly be done to evoke sexual arousal. Concealer to hide pimples and other blemishes? Do those things naturally vanish during sex? Not that I’ve noticed, so I guess that is off the list too. Eyebrow plucking / filling / shaping – I can’t say I’ve ever noticed eyebrows becoming neat and defined during sex, so that’s out…
In fact it seems most makeup methods don’t resemble sexual arousal at all. Blush and (red) lipstick are the only two. And so Peterson’s point is based on the selection of two coincidences and the deselection of everything else. What a shallow fucking thinker.
Nerd…@21, That reminds me of an incident late-ish last century. I was working in England at the time (who, judging by the screams and firecrackers at the local pub within earshot, just managed to win a game, or at least not embarrassingly-badly lose one), and used “British” spelling in some of the customer-facing software documentation. The British editors didn’t flag this up, and it got printed that way.
Oops. There was an exceptionally irate complaint from at least one customer (paraphrasing the “money quote” from memory), The company, after some dithering, decided that the spelling used in all English-language manuals would be “USAian”. (Fair enough, really, it was a States-side based company.) That decision, however, did not preclude using “British” spelling in, for instance, messages printed by the programs… (I do not now recall how examples of not-USAian-spelling messages were spelled in the manuals (perhaps intact as they were probably graphics (screenshots)?).)
(This was the fairly early days of I18n / L10n (Internationalization and localization) of software, so there were still a lot of “hard coded” messages, etc.)
blf @20,
Yeah, English spelling is a mess, and Mr. Webster’s reforms only made it slightly less so on this side of the pond. As an amateur historical linguist, I can appreciate some of the stories our spelling tells, even some based on folk etymology.
But I defy anyone to defend “gaol”.
Giliell #19
Jordan Peterson was one of the kids putting gravel in his snowballs.
He’s probably still OK with it.
Chigau#25, the snowball business was a tell that JP is a sadistic bully like my present POTUS. JP needs an empathy transplant.
@nym #24
So why would you exempt gaol’s perfectly respectable etymological roots from your appreciation? It’s survival into modern times warrants some consideration, surely?
Broadly, as I understand it, blame the Normans. Both spellings, “jail” and “gaol”, come from the French (which in turn comes from the Latin), but for some reason, Paris French spelled it “jaiole” but northern (i.e, Norman) French spelled it “gayole” (or variants). Norman-influenced French was the language of the dictators for centuries, hence the long-lasting use of “gaol”. The trod-on oppressed masses, meanwhile, just got on with it, and wound up spelling it closer to the pronunciation, “jail”, presumably with some influence from French.
In terms of bizarre pronunciations, the word spelled “jaguar” is pronounced very differently on the two sides of the pond. And then there is the (common?) pronunciation of “colonel”, which has only a vague resemblance to its spelling. (Rather like “clue”, in my opinion.) Apparently, the “colonel” one is due to, for some reason, adopting a spelling close to the French but a pronunciation close to the Spanish. I have no idea why.
The thing about the jaiole/gayole alternation among the French is that it reflected an actual variation in pronunciation. And it may be that at some point that alternation existed in English too. But these days no one pronounces it with a /g/, and as far as I can tell there’s never been another word in any of the relevant languages (English, French, Latin) where the letter g represents a fricative or affricate before the letter a.
Also, it just looks wrong.
Keep in mind J is a fairly recent development (new letter); and the pronunciation / usage does not directly date back to Latin, so different languages vary on those points. My current (and possibly defective) understanding is, at one time, in some versions of French (at least), J was pronounced close to /g/, at least some of the time, which is suggestive…
(And no, I am not defending modern “gaol”, only amused at how & why it has persisted.)
@Holms:
This point was discussed in the Google Hangout with PZ where I played a guest-starring role. It was determined that my use of day-glo green lipstick for a dance party with blacklight was a conclusive indicator that my labia are radioactive (and probably necrotic). Obviously, I wear glowing-green lipstick to sexually attract queers who have a thing for green, radioactive labia.
Nerd of Redhead, #21,
The spelling issue is irritating, but the true heresy when it comes to the American version of the BBC Civilisations series is that the US editors have, apparently, cut pretty much every on-screen appearance of Professor Dame Mary Beard from it. Because women over the age of 35 with large teeth are apparently too ugly for American television, or grey hair on a female makes American people’s eyes bleed, or some such thing. This means that Mary’s two episodes (on depictions of the human body and issues of religious depiction in art) don’t actually have any Mary Beard in them anymore.
Which, of course, a travesty of the highest order and demands swift and savage retaliation.
But yes, gaol is the correct and proper spelling. We have to keep little quirks like this in our orthography, or else we won’t have anything to hold over people from places that aren’t Britain who get it wrong. Since the mid 20th century the British have been trying to replace murderous Imperialistic bombast with self-aggrandising pedantic smugness as our defining national characteristic. I trust everyone will agree that this is an improvement?
@cartomancer, #33:
have I told you recently that I love you?
She should have worn green glowing lipstick.
Yonks ago, some David Attenborough series (Life, I think) got a somewhat similar mutilation, with his voiceover being replaced by Oprah Winfrey, who, as I recall, didn’t even bother to pronounce the (Latin-ish) scientific names correctly. There were also, as I now recall, other cuts to allow for commercials (or something like that).
Cartomancer #52
Misogyny and agism, I hear you. I definitely expect better from PBS. I certainly care more about the knowledge of the expert commentators than how they look. Sounds like I need to obtain the British version.
Peterast? Really?
Is this what passes for clever commentary these days?
BTW,
Here is the SPLC apologising to Maajid Nawaz for accusing him of being an anti-Muslim extremist. An false accusation repeated on this blog by many commenters when I spent some time commenting here recently.
https://www.splcenter.org/news/2018/06/18/splc-statement-regarding-maajid-nawaz-and-quilliam-foundation
The SPLC just lost $3.75million for defamation.
Fortunately Maajid Nawaz and Qilliiam are gong to put it to good use…fighting anti-Muslim bigotry!
@8&9-
Frankfurt School? Did they study the Enlightenment derived cultural tropes and media factors involved in transforming Frankfurter Würstchen of highbrow Kultur into ballpark franks that got associated with a very boring popular sport bastardized from rounders?
@37-
It was stupid misrepresentation for SPLC to label Nawaz that way. Yet Nawaz is doing himself no favors associating with Sam Harris, who is doing himself no favors associating with Jordan Peterson and Charles Murray. That’s pretty much a bad vibe clusterfuck Nawaz has inadvertently wandered into. I guess that’s what IDW podcasts will do to you.
Hemidactylus,
Condemned by association.
That sounds like a logical fallacy.
Hey, it is:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy
The Association Fallacy and the Euler diagram.
That’s the guy who associated e, i, pi, 1, and zero into a single equation!
Except that was a legitimate and brilliant association…
…unlike yours ;)
never had a lick of sense
Looking in the mirror again, chigau?
Okay.
Quotes with links to sources or I don’t believe you.
The SPLC shouldn’t be fined and made to apologize for calling a spade a spade.
In threads since 1 january, 2018 that include “billyjoe” and “maajid nawaz”, we find two threads other than this one. In one thread, the only mention of maajid nawaz is in the OP – there is no discussion at all. The other is the only opportunity for billyjoe to be proved right.
Let’s see how that works out, shall we?
Holms:
Hm. That’s a commenter saying that it’s good news that SPLC is no longer saying it. Holms isn’t endorsing SPLC’s characterization, he’s repudiating it.
Any others?
From the same thread:
KG at #31 (the very next comment)
This also doesn’t endorse the SPLC. It’s certainly critical of Nawaz, but there’s nothing that says the SPLC characterization was accurate or deserved.
blf & erik333 critique KG’s statement in the mid-30s.
Holms again at #40 remains consistent.
raaak in #41 is of the opinion that Nawaz is a “phony” and uses a bad definition of islamism as evidence of Nawaz’ lazy scholarship and thus supporting the status “phony” ascribed.
There are several mentions by you, billyjoe, in #50. I assume you’re not the commenter supporting the SPLC’s original position, so I didn’t read that comment (it’s long).
Holms @51:
raaak at 55 believes that Maajid and Quilliam are doing well despite not effectively advocating for those within muslim societies who are marginalized there. The claim actually goes further, that this success is “at the expense” of the vulnerable, but we don’t know if that means raaak thinks that Maajid is advocating for harmful policies or simply attracting attention and therefore resources away from those who would do much better by the vulnerable within muslim societies. It’s still no support of the SPLC’s original claim.
billyjoe, you’re at 58 again, with several more mentions.
@62 raaak again comments, asserting that Maajid is deliberately profligate with attributing the label “islamist” to anyone who takes action which hurts Maajid or Maajid’s cause/foundation. While this would be a bad trait, it’s not what the SPLC was alleging.
at the end of #62, however, raaak does assert that Maajid Nawaz is part of the “right wing propaganda machine” – still not what the SPLC said.
The conclusion of #62 is harsh. In response to you, saying
raaak replies:
It’s hard not to interpret “Jihad” metaphorically in this obviously snarky statement, but it’s the closest anyone comes to calling Nawaz “an anti-muslim extremist.”
Saad adds some snark about the moderate/liberal muslim perspective, and the Giliell finishes up without mentioning Nawaz, but clearly making references to him. In response to your
Giliell snarks again:
Well, look. That whole thread about Maajid Nawaz and NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON made the allegation that you insisted was made by
Why do you bother posting false crap here, knowing that we can simply look up the conversations? Shouldn’t you lie about something offline where we can’t easily fact check you? At least your reputation for honest debate wouldn’t get worse.
Porivil Sorrens,
Firstly, thanks for self-identifying as one of those who uncritically accepted the SPLC’s false accusation against Maajid Nawaz.
Secondly…well, here it is from the horses mouth so to speak:
629b151dc7
Although here’s Porivil Sorrens to prove the sentiment of which billyjoe complains does exist.
However, billyjoe still lied about, misremembered, or made up any facts related to “many commenters” having endorsed the SPLC’s characterization of Nawaz in previous conversations.
I know next to nothing about Islam and less about the diversity of muslim cultures, so I’ll take SPLC’s word for it that they made a mistake in calling Nawaz an anti-muslim extremist.
When will you come forward, billyjoe, to admit that your assertion about commenters previous statements is itself false?
…hmmm…okay, you can see the video by clicking on the link in the link I supplied in my previous comment.
Crip,
Well, we have Porivil Sorrens. I only need two more to self-identity as uncritically accepting the false accusation for my statement to be proven true. But I won’t hold my breath waiting for two more foolhardy persons to jump into the pit with Porivil.
billyjoe #42
Are you high?
@billyjoe:
No. You said people had done so previously. People – like Porivil – who endorse the SPLC’s accusation after you made your statement don’t in any way make your assertion true.
Now, if you said, “In the future, many people will” then Porivil’s comment would be relevant. So sorry if you feel trapped by linear time and its indifference to your machinations.
@40-billyjoe
Association? Nawaz actually engages the material components of the Sam Harris-Charles Murray podcast when he and Harris were interviewed by Joe Rogan so he willingly stepped on the landmine though while following the lead of his point man Sam:
https://youtu.be/lGdPcC0zBIQ
Discussion of that particular controversy and its fallout starts about 40 minutes into the show. I will let listeners make their own determinations. But Nawaz definitely left being “associated” in a Euler diagram manner well behind. He entered the fray. And that’s the Intellectual Dark Web.
For me to have “uncritically accepted” the SPLC’s accusation, I would have had to not already consider Nawaz an anti-islamic bigot prior to the SPLC’s accusation.
Fortunately, I came to that understanding prior, and maintain that position irrespective of what the SPLC says or retracts.
@Porivil:
Sorry for not noticing the problems with that “uncritically accepted” statement.
@54
We gucci, no worries. Can’t wait to see where the next 200+ post billyjoe rabbit hole takes us.
billyjoe#42
what?
@billyjoe 49
You claimed that people had said certain things in the past. That didn’t actually happen. That makes your claim a lie.
The fact that someone might say those things in the future, doesn’t make it true, or partly true. It’s still a lie.
Apart from the timeline issues, three is many? Obviously “many” is a relative term, but I’m hard pressed to think of a situation in which three would be considered “many”.
I agree, What a Maroon, but if it was 2 or 3 commenters that had repeated the accusations multiple times each, I think very reasonable human brains might get confused after a couple months over whether it was many repetitions or many separate commenters.
If that was the sum total of billyjoe’s errors, I’d actually be impressed with his memory’s accuracy, at least compared to other billyjoe performances.
I think you missed a chance to proclaim, rather, you were using mimicking phosphorescence, and were therefore signaling any abyssal squid and/or Deep Ones that might be present. Or maybe benthic anglerfish.
Oh come on. We all know that it’s 1-2-3-many, you need at least three people besides Porivil Sorons. But here we are, billyjoe. Children are ripped from their parents, fascism is marching, but you’re concerned about anybody being unfair to Jordan Peterson fans.
And we all know of course that an institution being forced by court to say something is really actually freely saying it, because that’s what free speech is all about: suing people into ruin for saying things you don’t like. And it wouldn’t of course be this Maajid Nawaz who blames Palestinians for being massacred by Israeli troops, like the most right wingers of the US government. No idea why people might consider him a tad anti muslim…
billyjoe,
Stop being so PC, you snowflake.
I thought “Clean your room” was the new Phrase.
I’ll just take this opportunity to reiterate that Maajid Nawaz is an opportunist fraud who pals around with anti-Muslim extremists (e.g. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Douglas Murray, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka “Tommy Robinson”), and to note that my assertion owes nothing to the SPLC, but is based on this article, and news reports in the UK press. The UK government stopped giving money to his absurd “Quilliam Foundation”apparently when they realised he had neither influence on nor any respect within British Muslim communities, so he’s been seeking new marks in the USA. I’ll add that billyjoe is a fuckwitted arsehole – but I admit that I don’t think anyone here, except billyjoe, was in any doubt about that.
BTW, hasn’t poor Jordan Peterson been unlucky? He’s been accused three times during his career of sexual impropriety, whereas I would guess that the median number of such accusations during a career – whether in academia or elsewhere – is zero.
And… another thread derailed by troll billyjoe.
The SPLC wasn’t convicted, they just choose to settle the lawsuit. A lawsuit they were bound to win:
https://www.popehat.com/2018/06/18/the-southern-poverty-law-center-surrenders-unconditionally-to-maajid-nawaz-we-should-be-concerned/
Refer to professor Richard D. Wolff for info about Karl Marx.
jack16
the problem with Nawaz can be summed up in two words, which he invented as a strawman and added more glue and glitter to ever since:
“regressive left”
just for THAT, he should be condemned.
KG has the right of it. people who support Nawaz indeed are often frauds themselves.
the reason SPLC backed down, is simply because this is exceedingly difficult to explain to your average numpty, and in the end, really isn’t worth it.
but then, that’s exactly why they never should have put him on the list to begin with. the argument for doing so simply takes too long to explain to be worth it, when there are soooooooo many much much better choices.
I’m not a fan of Nawaz myself — in fact, I rather detest him. I wouldn’t call him an extremist, though. He’s just an opportunist who has hitched his star to a group of extremists, and is very careful to surround himself with a cloud of plausible denial.
I know very few professors who have been formally accused of sexual harassment…and they all turned out to be guilty. It turns out that getting a hearing from a university committee is not easy, and requires real persistence by the victims, and usually multiple victims. Rumor and innuendo is one thing, but getting a full hearing where evidence is presented is a very different thing.
If Peterson has had a finger wagged at him by university administrators multiple times, something is up. We don’t know what, though, because as we all know university administrators would rather bury problems than expose them to the light.
yeah, the whole “3 times accused” statement Peterson made (which I saw on that greatest hits remix video when WHTM put it up) really puts his loathing for equity, diversity & inclusion in that famously elusive context.
Aw, man! Why’d you make me watch that? I finally had my YouTube recommendations sanitised and now I have start all over again!
1) I think it was stupid of SPLC to name Nawaz an Islamophone.
2) I also think that it is extremely hypocritical for defenders of “free speech” to celebrate this incident because the SPLC article was certainly not defamation. Do you really want Donald Trump so sue you if you call him a racist?
3) I like what Nawaz says with respect to extremism and I think in the leftwing circles Islamic extremism does not get enough attention. However, in the youtube video linked about Nawaz and Sam Harris end up being typical asshole fucking idiots. Listen for a token moment of Sam Harris trying to mansplain why IT/CS being massively male dominated is not necessarily a problem and that “It’s just that women are not interested bro!” https://youtu.be/lGdPcC0zBIQ?t=51m20s
BTW I didn’t watch the entire video, so if there are any poignant issues brought up in it that are infinitely more important than my “YouTube recommendations” (like sexual harassment e.g.) I apologise; I was just being silly.
Just adding, thank you @Crip Dyke, for your wonderful comment leading me to the comment in the other thread, explaining the denotations of E&Q&I in the context of Canadian university bureaucracy and law.
Thanks!
=8)-DX
(also the X is crossed legs.)
I had an odd but relevant dream last night perhaps due to this thread. I dreamt I was at someone’s house and there was a cake with coconut icing in the kitchen on the counter. I wanted some of that cake, but frickin Jordan Peterson was standing in front of it babbling about something inconsequential to me eating the cake. He was oblivious to the cake and started really pissing me off. I grabbed him by the arm and yanked hard. Might have been bad enough to dislocate his shoulder, but all he did was smile with those lifeless doll eyes as I tried to move his muppet body out of my way. He seemed to enjoy it. Maybe it was my collective unconscious telling he’s nothing but a blowhard braggart who bows deferentially to displays of superior power. Maybe he recognized his on the spot demotion in the lobster ladder. That’s all I recall. Don’t know if he slouched off and adjusted his serotonin levels. Weird.
Yes indeed – isn’t an Islamophone one of those devices that rings when it’s time to pray, and points you in the direction of Mecca?
About the “victim mentality” thing; right wingers are swimming in imagined grievances. Some of the clunkers I know of are;
– an imagined war on Christmas
– an imagined war on men/boys
– whining about being the victims of racism when white people’s racism is pointed out, or because of minority-specific scholarship programs, or because they think the “knockout game” is real
– constantly talking about how “real Americans” have supposedly been forgotten by the powers that be
– blaming job loss, especially coal or manufacturing jobs, on democrats
– spinning scare stories about swarthy immigrants raping and murdering white people
– whining about how you can supposedly ruin someone’s reputation at the drop of a hat with sexual harassment complaints
– hysterical doomsaying about the collapse of “western civilization”
– thinking that immigrants are somehow going to destroy American culture
– thinking that LGBT people are attacking them by being able to participate in society
– thinking that their intellectually bankrupt bullshit is being unfairly censored in universities
That probably isn’t all of them. This is all in spite of cishet white Christians, especially cishet white Christian men, being dominant in society and having far more financial, social, and political power than any other group in the country. And they have the complete lack of self-awareness to compare underprivileged racial minorities to Nazis.
My main problem with “victim mentality” criticisms is that they can be easily misused to dismiss an underprivileged group’s legitimate concerns. The new way to keep these groups down is to insist that society is colorblind and blame the hardships of the underprivileged on themselves.
I’m comfortable pointing out the ironies in conservative claims of persecution. I’m also comfortable pointing out cases where claims of persecution are based on misunderstandings of what persecution entails. However, I don’t think it’s at all right to treat claims of persecution as being a moral failing in and of themselves. That’s what Peterson and his ilk are doing when women, people of color, or LGBT people object to how society treats them.