Seeing Past the Picket Line to What's There

There are two kinds of people in this world (among many other lines and subtleties): those who decide whether they are for or against a person (as if the person should go away and die if the answer is "against"), and those who focus on deciding whether specific statements are true and specific actions are constructive. As you can tell from my phrasing, I'm the second kind. We are your buffer against polarization. We keep the rest of the world sane. You're welcome!

I'll tell you what I mean. Jordan Peterson is an intelligent writer, speaker, and debater. Many say his words have turned their lives around. His critical thinking seems sharp next to the average educated person's, which undoubtedly is some of why he's a professor in psychology, a practicing clinical psychologist, and recently (considered) a public intellectual. When I say this, you might think that I agree with his political stance on gender identity. Actually, I do not. Protecting LGBTQ+ people is critical for a fair society, and law changes are necessary. I support the law changes in Canada that upset him. However, some of his points are rational, even excellent. As far as I can see, anyway, he is making a serious effort to be honest and truthful (not the same thing). Is he right? Some of the time he is right, some of the time not. To declare that everything he says is wrong simply because he appears to resent the trans community, feminism, and political correctness at large would be to turn your own opinion into a cartoon. The points he makes are often good points. They add to the debate. You don't have to agree with his stance overall to grant that he makes good points. And that's what almost everyone does: they decide whether they are for or against someone, and then they stop thinking.

As a result, a well-made, apparently impartial documentary about Jordan Peterson is getting picketed and canceled at its first screenings. His political objection is mainly against impingements on free speech, and his most aggressive opponents seem to play right into his hand by trying to ban a documentary about him. They don't seem concerned with what's in the documentary, or they would recognize that it includes people with opinions like their own. They simply want to shut down and shut out Jordan Peterson because they disagree with some small fraction of his thinking about the world, in other words, with a fraction of his thinking that relates to a cause they care about or that affects them directly.

Here's a review of the film. Here's a report on the protest. Here's a statement from the director. Death threats are hate speech, undeniably. Saying that, as a professor, you want to be able to critique issues of gender identity on grounds of truth, and you don't want that to be interpreted and punished as hate speech, is, for the record, not hate speech. Now, he says things that are rather paranoid and are understandably taken as offensive. Whether he is responding to resentment directed at him or is simply prejudiced about gender fluidity, I don't know, but it does make him seem prejudiced. Before writing these words, I have to seriously consider how badly it will reflect on me. And I have to be careful, because I really don't want to add to anyone's oppression. (If that's how this is coming across, please forgive me. That isn't what I want.) Two of my close family members are more paranoid than Peterson is in a big way, and I know people with various prejudices, so I'm used to not hating a person for paranoia or prejudice. Yes, I accept you, whoever you are. You exist and you are important.

The picketing of Jordan Peterson's documentary, and the death threats and excessive polarization reducing complexity to caricatures of people and ultimately voodoo dolls and effigies, all this mirrors the treatment of a documentary made about men's rights activists—by a woman herself critical of that movement. Here's Cassie Jaye's TEDx talk. For investigating a movement she disagreed with, she received death threats. It's amazing how little a person needs to know before they decide they hate someone, a film that person made that they've never seen, the arguments in it that they haven't heard or thought about, etc.

This is exactly what I'm deeply opposed to: yes, also the current presidency (I volunteered for Hillary Clinton and the North Carolina Democrats the month leading up to the election), and much of what Republicanism and conservativism stand for today, but definitely this bad way of thinking (not-thinking, actually) that affects all sides, all academic levels, all social classes, all groups. We believe that all we've got to do is pick a side, pick the good person, pick the bad person, then go to war. And I do not believe that is the best way to make progress at all. At its very most insane, that's a mentality that assassinated Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, and millions of Jews. People think they have to fight for what's right (whatever they believe) by picking the baddies and then attacking the baddies, tragically often on scant evidence (and by that I do not mean to deny women's reports and testimonies in companies and courts, something we need to make a lot more room for and respect better). This polarization on personality and person is juvenile thinking at its most basic (good vs. bad), but it's also how most people think in all walks of life, just not as drastically stupidly as those assassins.

I am against that, and I am for rationality and compassion and progress. I am for you. Thank you for understanding.

I accept you. You exist and you are important. If we disagree, I'm interested most of all in your thought process. Even if we agree, I'm interested most of all in your thought process. And I hope you appreciate that, and I hope you don't mind that I would afford the same consideration to someone else.

st

Broth is usually pronounced incorrectly. It should be pronounced "bruhth."

Also, why are we all so lazy about superscripts? It's bro^th.

The bro^th fresh air was warmer and kinder than the eleven^th fresh air, even better than the fresh^st air.

Out

I've always had a hard time identifying with how easily people get insulted and hold grudges. What good does it do?

If you say something I don't like, I will search it carefully for useful information regardless, and I will never be absolutely totally sure I'm right. There's a little game I play with reality: whimsical uncertainty about absolutely anything. It's usually fun, and it keeps perceptions limber and ready to accommodate facts. I'll imagine you're right, even if you sound insane. You always get a bit of an out there.

Especially if I can construe what you say as a factual statement or an attempt at factuality, I don't see any excuse for holding a grudge.

To me, this is the only sensible way to be. I don't get it.

Actually, I do get it! Life is difficult, and too many people are mean—even decent people. I just disagree, ultimately. My way is better.