1. Read Echidne of the Snakes three part book review about Jordan Peterson and why his cult is buying a bucket of bilge.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
2. Listen to the brilliant and insightful interview that Michael Enright did with Henry Mintzberg about what is wrong with both the American and Canadian healthcare systems and why any sane American would rather have their problems than ours.
Medicine is a calling, not a business: Henry Mintzberg
If they put out a transcript of the interview tomorrow I will probably be writing about it.
3, Read a book.
Heck, if they had a curling match on near you you should go see that instead. Or learn to do it. I'd rather watch people sweeping floors without the ice or match.
I don't disagree with Brueggemann, but I'll probably skip the Son of Chinese Superbowl (last year it was "LI," now it's "LII"? I know it's Roman, but it looks like transliterated Chinese, which is more apropos anyway. OTOH, being so Roman it's quasi-gladiatorial bread-and-circuses. Anyway....) and watch "Victoria." Yeah, British costume drama consumed with the importance of monarchy, but it's more interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt's that or go back to reading Levinas. Although I do have a new anthology of early Hammett writings.....
I've been working my way through Dorothy Hughes books, she was a really interesting writer who never got her due. But I'm also working on the Giles Blunt series about Cardinal, I skip over the parts where he goes into more detail about depravity than I like.
DeleteYou can do both, you know. I watched the game and then read the anti-Peterson screed. The snake lady should have probably mentioned Cathy Newman made a complete ass of herself during the interview ("So what you're saying..."). She would have done well to read your Russell quote. Ay caramba. I don't agree with Peterson but she's often as wrong as he is. There is the world you imagine and one you reside in. They both appear to prefer the former to the latter.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't possibly disagree with you more, she was trying to do a time-limited live interview with a slippery snake oil salesman and cult figure, trying to keep control of the interview, getting him to answer her points instead of wiggling out of them. Cathy Newman got a new fan in me when I listened to the interview.
Delete"So what you're saying..."
For heavens sake, the interview was about what Peterson was saying, how was she supposed to ask about that so as to differentiate what he'd said from what she thought?
If you fact-check Jordan Peterson it's soon clear that whenever he talks about biology he's about as reality based as Ken Hamm or Ann Coulter on evolution. Basing your claims about gender roles and social hierarchy in human beings on what some ethologists claim about lobster behavior is about as absurd as basing such claims on the behavior of preying mantis or other species in that phylum which is a billion years of evolution through untold numbers of species, subspecies and individuals removed from even the common ancestors of both species nevermind individuals (as I recall Peterson didn't even bother to state which species of lobster he was referring to). And, as that article I quoted last week pointed out, his claims about the effects of serotonin in lobsters and human beings is not only absurd, it gets the science wrong.
Echidne is one of the most intelligent and careful and well researched bloggers I know of, we disagree on a number of things but she doesn't do what Peterson and, so much more so, his fan-boys do with ideas too complex for their voluntary and involuntary foolishness.
Peterson's is a variant on a psychoanalytic cult, the pseudo-sciences of psychology and psychiatry have a distinctly telling history in generating those.
You really do have a thing about women, I have to point out. I'm not going to try to psychoanalyze you but it's apparent you can't listen to women objectively.
"For heavens sake, the interview was about what Peterson was saying, how was she supposed to ask about that so as to differentiate what he'd said from what she thought?"
ReplyDeleteBecause he wasn't saying what she was declaring he did. Here's an exchange (note - I'm not the first, last, only or lone person to notice she was taking his comments and completely misrepresenting them):
Peterson - "Well, what sort of partner do you want? Do you want an overgrown child? Or do you want someone to contend with who is going to help you?"
"So you’re saying that women have some sort of duty to help fix the crisis of masculinity?"
NO! He's saying that it would be a benefit if women held men to standard of behavior based on a shared, mature interest rather than it be their obligation to "fix" the men. The interview is full of exchanges like that.
Again, I'm not the voice in the wilderness on this one. At one point, she even admits he's got her stumped (when he pointed out she has a right to make him uncomfortable in her line of questions the same way he does. She literally had to take a few seconds to compose herself. Obviously she didn't think her arguments through very well).
Also, I am certainly not talking about his views on evolution and lobsters. I never even brought those up. Most of the interview doesn't deal with that topic either. Jeez. There's far more to his writings than that.
You really have a thing where you try to argue your points via ah hominem. When a person (male or female) refuses to address the person's actual talking points but rephrases them incorrectly (Cathy Newman), insists that their melanin levels make them a member of community they are culturally and geographically distant from (Amber Ruffin), or proclaims that it's a man's job to read "non-verbal cues" and wonder if the women who willingly came up to your apartment and undressed is really comfortable being there (Sam Bee), then, yes, I will make my opinion public. And it's likely not going to be positive one.
And I want to point out this is a pattern with you: when I was critical of Spike Lee for advocating his Twitter followers lynch George Zimmerman, you said I had a problem with black people. When I pointed out I was far more critical of Zimmerman, you accused me of using the term "lynch" incorrectly. As I explained, giving the address of someone and encouraging people to "reach out and touch him" was indeed a crude attempt at encouraging an act of mob violence. You quickly changed the subject.
Just because someone is on the correct side of a political/culture divide doesn't mean everything they do is correct.
And you'll note, I said about Peterson/Newman, "she's often as wrong as he is." So, clearly that means I DON'T agree with Peterson!
It was a live interview and I did listen to the entire thing. They were discussing things he'd written which are largely nonsense and sexist and pseudo-scientific and not exactly coherent. And he's enough of a conman to know how to be slippery and how to try to steer a line of questioning away from someone calling him on his conjob. I've had enough extensive arguments with people like that to know I wouldn't attempt it live, in real time on TV or radio. And I've sometimes managed to force a conman into confronting a line of crap they're trying to sell, Sean Carroll on his claims that science is on a Theory of Everything in the universe when they can't even claim to have comprehensive and exhaustive knowledge of so much as a single electron, P Z Myers didn't exactly confess to it but he threw in the towel when he realized I'd caught him on his phonied up "Great Desecration" hoax through his over-elaborate cover story about how he obtained the "consecrated host" in his photographed display. It took me seventeen days of persistently asking over several comment threads to get Carroll to admit that point was true. With lots of people reading it who obviously knew that the answer had to be "yes".
DeleteI don't believe I said you had a problem with Black People merely on the basis of what you said about Spike Lee, you've definitely got a thing about Amber Ruffin, as well. I don't recall defending Spike Lee who I don't exactly admire but I'm not going to go digging through ancient comments to find that exchange. If you want to refer me to it, I might look at it and discuss it with you.
It was hardly only Black People who, when the racists in Florida let him off from premeditated murder of an unarmed child and racists around the country were supporting him, felt like taking justice in their own hands.
I don't recall saying something like that about lynching, I've argued in the past that, according to FBI statistics, about three or four women are, effectively, lynched every day in the United States and no one even notices it. Again, show me what I said and where I said it.
I think you'd be rather hard put to accuse me of anti-male bias, considering I'm one, myself, and a good percentage of the people I cite either admiringly or respectfully are White Men. I even have done that when it was White Men I didn't like, John Paul II, Benedict XVI come to mind. I did it not that long ago when I said William Lane Craig is a more responsible and honest debater than the celebrity scientists he debates. And I've been extremely critical of People of Color and Women, even some who I, otherwise agree with.
"It was a live interview and I did listen...largely nonsense and sexist and pseudo-scientific and not exactly coherent."
DeleteSuch as? And no lobsters or evolution. Most of her "So you're saying..." comments revolved around issues unrelated to either.
"And he's enough of a conman to know how to be slippery and how to try to steer a line of questioning away from someone calling him on his conjob."
But he never said, "women have some sort of duty to help fix the crisis of masculinity." That is an exact "rephrasing" of hers. That you think him a conman doesn't mean she did a good job exposing that just because she tried with good intentions. Again, I repeat, he even literally left her speechless at one point. I sent that to my cousin, a PhD, and way more liberal than me (he lives in Montreal) and he told me he might use it in class as an example of how NOT to argue. She just bombed. Boldly and defiantly, but that's an "E" for effort performance.
"you've definitely got a thing about Amber Ruffin"
Because I called out her unfunny virtue signaling that, when any thought is applied to it, crumbles like a house of cards in a earthquake? "It's offensive when white women use 'black' terminology and idioms." What about when Peter Gomes or Barack Obama speak in a "white" manner becoming of a Harvard graduate? Are they using "white" language?
You tend to speak like your audience. My mother went to England for work for a month and came back sounding like Julie Christie. I doubt her British counterparts found it offensive. I really don't want to hear Amber's take on it.
"It was hardly only Black People who, when the racists in Florida let him off from premeditated murder of an unarmed child and racists around the country were supporting him, felt like taking justice in their own hands."
First off, there is ZERO evidence that was premeditated murder. Was he careless, reckless, stupid and indifferent? Absolutely. But if Zimmerman wanted to just kill Martin I doubt he would have let him get on top of him and bash his head in the ground first.
Second, Lee did that BEFORE the verdict! And he gave the wrong address! Imagine a black man is charged with killing a white man, and David Duke puts out his address before the trial and encourages people to "reach out and touch him." I imagine the same press that treated Lee with gentle chiding wouldn't be outraged (rightly) at such dangerous behavior. Zimmerman had a wife and a child. Imagine some reckless thugs shot up his house and one of them was hurt? What Lee did is simply inexcusable, and my anger comes not just from his behavior but the press's refusal to hold him accountable. Mel Gibson had to leave Hollywood for a decade based on horrible things he said. Lee got nothing but "oh, well" for doing something horrible.
Ruffin is useless as bucket with a hole in it, but I've said before I watch Bee's show regularly. I thought she was great way back on 'The Daily Show.' Which makes her misguided and desperate pretending that the anonymous attempt to smear Ansari (a man I don't find funny at al, by the way) wasn't the point when #MeToo's reach went beyond it's grasp. I find it troubling that it could undo the good that the awareness has done. Now, if we could just get some performers to admit they got down on their knees for that Oscar-winning role we'd be able to really accomplish something.
We're going to have to agree to disagree on most of this. I would never countenance someone advocating killing someone or giving an address out, even the right one, over the internet.
DeleteI really don't want to get into another long argument over this, I think a lot of your perceptions are exaggerated, though maybe not all of them. Though there is certain evidence of premeditated and cold blooded murder, pursuing a kid on the basis that he was black, who was unarmed, and murdering him and getting off because the victim was black and the murderer was white and a white racist and self-appointed vigilante, a one man slave-patroller who had been told by the police dispatcher to not do what he did. George Zimmerman was then helped by the police who treated him in the long tradition of racist cops letting off the killers of Black People before public outrage forced them to prosecute the case - badly.
A kid who was attacked tried to defend himself, for that he was murdered and the murderer was let off. That's how I see it.
I don't disagree that Zimmerman was guilty, but I think manslaughter would have been a reasonable and just verdict. Again, reckless and bigoted? Yes, but that doesn't mean he set out to murder anyone. I think his prejudice made him think Martin a thug on the prowl, but, again, that doesn't mean he set out to kill him.
Delete"had been told by the police dispatcher to not do what he did."
Actually, no, she said you "don't have to" follow him. She did not say, "Do not follow and engage the suspect." It is a distinction with a difference. Based on his behavior since, he's clearly a piece of shit, and I don't say that because I have a thing about Hispanic men.
"George Zimmerman was then helped by the police who treated him in the long tradition of racist cops letting off the killers of Black People before public outrage forced them to prosecute the case - badly."
Now, see, "racist cops?" Look at Zimmerman's picture taken the night of the incident. They had every reason to suspect he was attacked according to his version of the story. The facts came out later about his wanna-be Charles Bronson persona. That they didn't grab him and give him a Chicago phone call doesn't make them as bigoted as he is.
As I've said, just because I agree with someone on most issues political doesn't mean everything they say has to be honest and true, and just because I disagree (as I do with Peterson about much of what he says) doesn't mean I can't objectively say he came across a lot better in that interview than Newman.