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whitehotharlots · 5 years

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TERF war

I took feminist lit and theory courses as an undergraduate, in 2003 and 04. For the time, the courses were incredibly trans inclusive (bear in mind this was a year before Jon Stewart would dismiss Dennis Kucinich’s suggestion of appointing a trans SCOTUS justice, referring to the hypothetic appointee as “the honorable chick with dick”). A good 20% of the course was dedicated to reading books by and about trans people. We even got a visit from Leslie Feinberg—the person who literally coined the term transgender, and one of the kindest souls I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

The foundational, explicit understanding I was taught in these classes was that biological sex is innate, a fixed fact of a person’s bodily being, whereas gender is a fluid and malleable social construct. No one could have gotten through these classes thinking the opposite.

The utility of this understanding is easy to grasp: by denying the fixity of gender, feminists were able to undermine social and interpersonal structures that had traditionally denied women freedom, choice, dignity, and agency. A woman was not biologically destined to a life of domestic servitude; nor was she naturally inclined to be more submissive or deferential. Most germane to this discussion, this understanding validated the existence and experience of gender non-conforming lesbians: just because they were not traditionally feminine didn’t mean they weren’t women, or that they were in need of any fixing.

Very recently—within the last 5 or 6 years, as the abstract language of feminism has permeated the wider culture and gotten watered down for sake of digestibility—the poles have shifted. Now, we are told, it is actually gender which is fixed and innate, a metaphysical force lurking within us, suppressed by social pressures, unleashed gloriously with the aid of surgery and supplemental hormones. Biological sex, meanwhile, is a construct that doesn’t exist and shouldn’t even factor in to one’s analysis of gender relations. Sex is hereby an utter fabrication, a projection of the sick evils of normalized (cis male) consciousness engrained upon people’s erstwhile blank bodies. Taken to extreme, we are told this therefore means trans women can get periods and that there is “literally zero” difference between trans and cis women. Ergo, having a uterus doesn’t make you a woman, biological or otherwise—it simply makes you a “uterus haver.”

The utility of this shift comes from the fact that trans self-actualization relies not just on social positioning but on bodily experience. Trans peoples’ mental wellbeing often hinges on their having access to the medical interventions required to get their body to conform to their innate sense of gender. Since we live in a country where few people have access to basic healthcare, trans people have had to medicalize their position—assert a fundamental and harmful mind/body disconnect—in order to have these interventions regarded as essential, rather than elective.

So while it’s perfectly understandable and useful, this shift nonetheless represents a profound upending of decades of feminist thought, and I’m shocked that it doesn’t appear to have even been deliberated upon. It was asserted through tumblrs and tweets and everydayfeminism dot com posts, everyone kind of nodded their heads in agreement, and that has been that. For the most part.

Now, we might able to say that the reversal is simply academic: trans people and cis women each need to advance their respective theories of gender and sex to serve as the basis of political programs that might afford safety and respect to each group. There’s no need, necessarily, to concern ourselves too exclusively with the details. Consider a parallel: anyone who was actually involved in theoretical side of gay rights in the 70’s-90’s knows that saying gay people were “born gay” was not a universally agreed upon assertion. Many argued that this was essentially a reactionary frame which stigmatized homosexuality, making it seem like gays would have chosen to be straight if only their brains or genes hadn’t screwed things up. Eventually however, the “born this way” line prevailed, became mainstream, and was the basis of most of the gay rights campaigns of this century. Most of the people who disagreed with it on academic grounds still supported it, at least publicly, once they became aware of its political utility. Why can’t we do the same with today’s split conceptualizations of gender and sex?

Seriously, why can’t we?

The sex/gender-fluid/innate reversal came around the time when trans people started receiving their first regular, non-dismissive appearances in US media. This was the first time most people had been bothered to think seriously about gender, and the first time that the existence of trans people was admitted to as something that wasn’t freakish or a punchline. That’s a huge positive, obviously. And it happened with surprisingly little mainstream pushback (compare the responses to Laverne Cox’s appearance in Orange is the New Black with the intense outrage that accompanied Ellen Degeneres coming out just 15 years earlier—the difference is astounding).

This is where things get troublesome. Many established feminists, especially second wavers, were upset to see their life’s work upended in such a way. Some reacted horribly dismissively. Others wrote thoughtful, seemingly even-handed pieces that nonetheless seemed calculated to subtly dismiss the experiences of trans people, like by repeatedly misgendering trans authors. And still others respectfully expressed objections to or concerns with mainstream trans rights assertions. These writers tended to operate in either academic or upper-middlebrow spaces, and their prose is consequently calm, erudite, and often super dense. The rebuttals to these pieces came from places like jezebel, loveisarainbow dot com, or geocities.com/sunsetstrip/3765/madtransbitch. These pieces are easily digestible, frequently angry or even violent, and hyperbolic without exception, accusing the cis feminists of fomenting or even committing violence against trans people. In the court of woke public opinion, the second wavers did not stand a chance. They were accused—sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly—of abject hatred of trans people, blamed for suicides and murders, and grouped in with the racists and homophobes of yore. Within a very short period of time, those who haven’t learned to be quiet have been shunted away to the darkest academic backwaters (or they live in the UK, where university cultural studies is dominated by second wavers).

But, again, why not just be quiet? Honestly, that’s my preferred approach. Maybe it would be different if I had based an academic career on one assertion over another. But overall it seems like both groups should still be able to pursue their own political agendas on their own terms, so why bother discussing this contradiction? And just on a personal (that is, cowardly) note, I might not agree that biological sex is a construct, and I certainly don’t think gender is innate, but I also think trans people should have easy access to medical intervention, so why not let the inversion stand?

But herein lies the problem: politically, the two groups are not separate. One of the most frequently levied criticisms against certain feminist authors and movements is a lack of trans-inclusivity. Pink pussy hats were verboten within hours of their debut. Colleges have cancelled productions of The Vagina Monologues (not because it’s overwrought treacle, but because it talks about vaginas, which makes it de facto transphobic). These incidents may seem trifling by themselves, but they serve as avatars of a very real and important conflict: cis feminists are being demanded to center their feminism in an understanding of sex and gender that directly contradicts the base of their ideology. Because of this, actions and symbols that were recently taken as signs of love and solidarity are now being cast as hate speech. Cis women are being told, literally, that they have no right to call themselves women (trans women are “women,” cis women are “menstruaters”). Cis lesbians are called homophobic for not being attracted to people with penises. In short, a trans movement that purports to dedicate itself to ensuring that its purveyors be given the right to be recognized by own their self-understanding is doing so by denying that same right to others.

The only possible result here is a complete collapse anything resembling a unified feminist movement. Meaning, I guess, that it fits in perfectly with the atomized understandings of social justice that stem from internet-based discourse. I suppose I could end with a plea for decency and understanding, perhaps even outline a alignment that would allow for trans advocates and cis feminists to recognize tactical points of departure from one another without fear of committing literal assault or denying the existence of one another. But we’re past that point, I think. There’s no more space for humane liberalism. Everything’s a knock-down, drag-out these days. We don’t even pretend to want to help one another.

Addendum:

People are raising the fair point that a vast majority of trans people don’t subscribe to the sort of wrecker beliefs I outline here. That is absolutely true and part of what makes the shittiness of online gender discourse so tragic. I did not mean to suggest that these beliefs are at all common among trans people. I intended to criticize only the shitty woke media apparatus (everydayfeminism et al) that occludes any attempt at effectively theorizing gender because it prioritizes hyperbolic victim mongering over achieving political goals.

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incarnateirony · 6 years

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subtext, gender/sexual politics, literature.

So I'm going to clarify a few things that have apparently become unclear to some people.

In real life, I am a homosexual woman, possibly genderfluid I guess as I don't actually strongly identify in that and often tend to write/think/operate better from male perspective in regards to how I correspond (or on a literary level as an author, I find my female characters to ironically be far more shallow than my males, which are incredibly complex most of the time, and it takes active effort for me to Girl well sometimes), but not completely; but either way, that's me. I do wholy support any and all discussion of LGBTQIA pairings deserving everything heterosexual pairings do in media, and at times I do have frustration on issues such as bisexual erasure and the like.

However, the bulk of my commentary is and will always be from a literary and/or production based observation level in regards to content/canon. (This is, of course, separate from my data sets and numbers.) As a result, I will make statements that may not necessarily resonate with LGBT+ political and equality issues, because it's true: we don't have equality in viewing.

But conflating all issues together, in my opinion, actually does us a great disservice. Until we can discuss definitions of canon and subtext - until we can acknowledge what makes these things, what our structure is, and why we are where we are - we can not actually make rational statements in regards to what the community does or doesn't deserve.

In example: Destiel

Okay, queer ship that is teetering on the brink of hard-smack-in-your-face-canon like the image hanging in Dean's Scoobynatural mancave from Point of Know Return cover. At this point, on a literature level, does it warrant completion? Yes, it certainly does, and that's it's own topic.

However until we define canon, romance, subtext, etc, how do we rationally engage in what we do and don't deserve, especially while people continue to move the goal line on what we already do and don't have? And yes, we deserve canon pairings fully 100% confirmed on screen with great endings, but don't we also deserve our subtext to be accepted and respected equally as well? Making that statement in no way whatsoever is saying that's all we deserve. It's saying we deserve the same things as everybody else. And if the same lines in the same arrangement in a straight couple is subtextually assumed into canon as a couple when almost exclusively only seeing that content, juxtaposing the right to buckle down confirmed intent of subtext is in no way saying that's what we should settle for - but we should also be equally observed on ALL fronts.

This is something I make a statement on with any kind of literary commentary though. It's not specific to Supernatural, or Destiel. I frequently lob comparitive literature into the frame because it's just that: across all literature. This isn't a point I'd just stand for one specific thing, and I apply it unilaterally.

Subtext with confirmed creator intent of presentation is itself a form of canon as per the dictionary, as almost all content is typically subtextual, especially in a video format where only dialogue is hard committed to words and Actual Text requires ELI5 Speak Into The Camera unless we happen to get a script release which, anyone who knows how scripts read, is still bare bones and subject to the blurring line of what actors see, until directors or showrunners give them extra special guidance and correction (see: Carver correcting Jensen that Dean wasn't enamored with Amara but she was his Kryptonite; Carver telling Misha to play Castiel as a jilted lover.) Without author intent, which is in fact part of the definition of accepted fictional canon, this line continues to further blur along the way as it manifests. We need to be able to discuss author intent and stick to our guns.

Frankly? I have my own headcanons. I rarely insert them into conversation. In example, to me, Castiel represents Asexual most of the time as during his angelic periods he lacks human survival function (sleep/eat/drink/age/curiously headtilt at boner) and angels seem to need to 'learn' to appreciate sex (cuz Lucifer was a billion years old when he figured out sex was fun, and Nephilim exist, Anna carved out her grace for a long list of reasons including but not limited to that) while lacking any other biological drive as compulsion as much as cost-reward-fun. I hold to the authorial intent statement of Edlund/Sgriccia for Dean's capability of love in all places/romcom fluster with dude, which manifests with a lot of standard bisexual repression issues in the character. By nature, I see a repressed bisexual and confused asexual tied in some torrid heart-wrenching homoromantic situation where, sexuality of the issue aside, the romantic elements themselves are all largely confirmed as intentional post-S9. By nature, to me, while I would love a coming-out story for Dean to take action and encourage bridging the gap, and/or a humanized Cas (as his drives kicked in temporarily during S9), I'm not going to trumpet about wanting it rItE NaO because frankly, I also do in fact bear respect for the Asexual branch of LGBTQIA and I see no reason to force that on Cas either. (< THIS WAS IN THE ORIGINAL POST SOMEONE FLIPPED ON ME ABOUT FORCING THINGS ON CAS/ACE) There is authorial intent statements for biDean Dean, there are authorial intent statements for romantic if nonsexual Destiel, but Cas kinda floats on authorial intent.

But that's just it: While Dean’s sexuality has authorial intent statements, all that stuff about Cas?: that's my headcanon. It's well-corroborated and has a lot of substantiation via canon but Cas himself has never had sexuality statements made on an authorial level. In actual canon, he has stated he is indifferent to orientation which means he could be pan, or could be asexual (which will be addressed in a reblog to follow since this seemed to offend the f*ck out of someone despite context) either of which have foundation, and I can't smack down anybody who believes he's pan either. (and apparently I need to continue to remind the world that Sleeping With A Woman doesn't mean you're totally straight either.)

In result there's no way for me to fairly use literary angles to discuss the gender and sexual equality issues I see in the show with complete bridge to both ends of the pairing, (also part of the original post that somehow got ignored so someone could be offended) without being potentially dismissive of other headcanons that have no opposing authorial intent statement to nail down the content into canon. But this is a trap we often find ourselves in because of the sensitivity OF gender/sexual politics and the reactionary and defensive nature (part of the OP) we're used to while chasing around goal posts people pretend are moving because people refuse to nail down basic definitions like canon, subtext, and romance.

Which is why I find it so critically important for people to stand these points and stop letting straight people concern troll around while trying to pick up and move the goal post, and/or worse, training you into doing it for them. We deserve literally every consideration they get. Every. And while yes, that means we deserve happy endings, that also means our canonical subtext deserves equal footing as well.

So yes, fight for your right for happy endings, but also fight for your right to be held in EVERY same literary standard.

Yes, the world doesn’t take LGBT+ subtext seriously enough, and that’s an issue, and that needs to change, but that won’t change if people come unhinged any time we also try to bolt down canonical subtext with authorial intent under the idea that it’s implicit that it’s “all we need.” Because that isn’t what that’s saying. At all. And until we break this reactive habit we’re going to continue to be a disservice in accidentally abetting the perpetuation of this filtering (ironically missed point of OP) because we’re not even letting ourselves address it on a core and cut it off at the knees.

And that's my piece. (Reblog coming shortly)

#supernatural #spn #destiel #sexuality #gender politics

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citizentruth-blog · 6 years

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The Pseudo-Scientific (and Dangerous) World of Jordan Peterson - PEER NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/the-pseudo-scientific-and-dangerous-world-of-jordan-peterson/

The Pseudo-Scientific (and Dangerous) World of Jordan Peterson

By all accounts, Jordan Peterson is brilliant and a gifted orator and his self-help guidelines may positively impact people’s lives. On the other hand, the man is arrogant, combative, and his rhetoric about “the left” may be patently dangerous. (Photo Credit: Adam Jacobs/Flickr/Creative Commons)

Without having seen one of his YouTube videos or hearing him speak, I have to rely on second-hand accounts about intellectual and psychologist Jordan Peterson and his ideologies. From what I have read and witnessed about him, Peterson is a charismatic orator, a gifted debater, and intellectually brilliant. He’s also apparently arrogant, confrontational, and dismissive of opinions that are not his own. To even acknowledge his burgeoning popularity is to give credence to his platform and potentially invite a backlash from his adoring followers (though, given my limited readership, this probably all but negates the risk).

So, what is the appeal of writing a blog entry about Jordan Peterson, other than that I needed someone or something about which to write and I didn’t feel like writing about the Trump administration for the umpteenth time?

I suppose my interest was piqued in Peterson only in the last few weeks or so when I began to encounter an onslaught of negative press about the man, his latest book, 12 Rules for Life, and his musings about “enforced monogamy,” the latter of which supposedly is a not a dystopian, government-controlled “insistence” on the virtues of monogamy, but rather a socially and culturally promoted set of ideals which likewise supposedly is reflected in anthropological, biological, and psychological research and theory.

“Enforced monogamy” also informs Peterson’s belief as to a solution to the likes of the attack allegedly perpetrated by Alek Minassian in Toronto last month, evidently a participant in so-called “incel” culture comprised of “involuntary celibate” men who show resentment toward a society that denies them the ability to have sex, actively or otherwise. As Peterson sees it, enforced monogamy is the cure for that anger, and specifically, in Minassian’s case, he was angry at God. This despite any stated political or religious affiliations as indicated by authorities at the place and time of the incident. But, hey—maybe this is just another indication of Peterson’s brilliance that he was able to divine this information!

Some of you may read these musings of Jordan Peterson’s on monogamy and the Toronto van attack and think, “Well, this guy is full of shit—I’ve heard all that I need to hear.” Such is well within your right to believe. You may commence with skimming this article and head toward the conclusion. Still, for those of you like me who choose to dig deeper, beyond the headlines that may exist if only to bait you into clicking and to engender outrage (or are just plain masochistic), it’s worth it to study Peterson’s worldview with the help of those who have reviewed his public statements at length or those who know him personally.

One such reviewer is known by the nom de tweet Natalie Wynn, a transgender ex-academic with a background in philosophy who comments on the cultural and philosophical issues of the day from her YouTube channel ContraPoints. In her latest video, Wynn, while jokingly alluding to Peterson’s past invocations of hierarchies in lobsters in talking about human societal order and putting Peterson’s face on a dummy’s body and soaking with it in a bathtub—this is part of her offbeat charm—acknowledges that after listening to his podcasts, reading his books, and watching his videos on YouTube, she gets why people like him.

For Natalie, Peterson has real talent as a public speaker and life coach, with his major distinguishing quality being that Peterson infuses traditional self-help verbiage with biblical insights, Jungian psychoanalysis, philosophy, and psychology. In this respect, nothing that he presents is really new—especially if you’re familiar with the trappings of AA, Ms. Wynn quips—but as far as she is concerned, from a self-improvement standpoint, more power to the Canadian psychology professor.

The issue with Peterson’s life coaching, however, as Wynn views it, is that it is a “Trojan horse for a reactionary political agenda,” one that opposes progressive politics as something “totalitarian and evil.” Peterson refers to progressive politics by the term postmodern neo-Marxism, and Wynn, using her educational background, painstakingly dissects this use of the terminology. Going through a cursory-yet-lengthy history of modernism, she eventually gets to the point that Marxism is a fundamentally modernist worldview that theorizes the human condition in economic terms, while postmodernism is a kind of skepticism that denies humans’ capacity for knowing universal truths about the world around them.

Accordingly, these concepts would seem to be at odds, and Peterson’s use of the term would only seem to enhance the confusion. As Natalie Wynn outlines, Jordan Peterson’s animus is levied upon a rather nebulous group that includes administrators at colleges and universities, civil rights activists, corporate human resources departments, feminists, liberal politicians, Marxists, postmodernists, and so-called “social justice warriors (SJWs).” It’s a problematically loose association of leftists which ignores the tensions that tend to exist between so many of the subgroups under this umbrella and on which Peterson tries to pin the downfall of Western civilization amid his fearmongering.

Likewise problematic is Peterson’s concept of “the West.” As Wynn breaks it down, Peterson’s “West” is emblematic of concepts like capitalism, individualism, and “Judeo-Christian values,” while “postmodern neo-Marxism” is aligned with anti-Western sentiment, collectivism, relativism, and totalitarianism. Marxism and postmodernism, as Wynn elucidates, are Western philosophies, so this immediately calls Peterson’s framework into question, as does his insistence on SJW ideology as a non-Western function.

Moreover, Wynn argues, if Peterson was really concerned about celebrating individuality, he would be more open to, for instance, the use of gender-neutral pronouns to suit the needs of individual students (Peterson made headlines when he vowed he would refuse to comply with any provincial laws on the use of “alternative” pronouns). In addition, if he were more insistent on preserving “the West” as a geographical and philosophical construct, he would, you know, rail against Buddhism, or own that the Marquis de Sade, for one, was into some stuff that doesn’t really fit with “Judeo-Christian values,” and he was from the West. By these standards, Peterson’s categories seem woefully arbitrary and haphazard.

Thus, despite her mild admiration for Peterson’s attention to the tendency of some people on the left to shout down even slightly different opinions, as well as an appreciation for the need to provide folks with a positive, proactive ideology rather than a liberal focus on everything one shouldn’t be doing and a preoccupation with how society oppresses people without a path to corrective action, Natalie Wynn sees a real danger in Jordan Peterson’s anti-leftist rhetoric.

She’s not alone, either. Bernard Schiff, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Toronto and someone who knows Peterson well as one of his historically staunchest defenders against other faculty at the university, recently penned a special opinion piece for the Toronto Star regarding his change of heart, so to speak, on Peterson and his methods. In Schiff’s opening to his expansive essay, he sets the tone for the piece by explaining what he admires about his colleague, and why he has more recently pivoted on someone he has considered a friend:

I thought long and hard before writing about Jordan, and I do not do this lightly. He has one of the most agile and creative minds I’ve ever known. He is a powerful orator. He is smart, passionate, engaging and compelling and can be thoughtful and kind.

I was once his strongest supporter.

That all changed with his rise to celebrity. I am alarmed by his now-questionable relationship to truth, intellectual integrity and common decency, which I had not seen before. His output is voluminous and filled with oversimplifications which obscure or misrepresent complex matters in the service of a message which is difficult to pin down. He can be very persuasive, and toys with facts and with people’s emotions. I believe he is a man with a mission. It is less clear what that mission is.

So, why did Schiff have to defend Peterson as a fellow professor among the faculty at the University of Toronto? Shocker!—though his celebrity may be bringing out the very worst in him, Peterson was always kind of a son of a bitch. Schiff concedes that Peterson possessed a rather immaculate record before his arrival at the University of Toronto, and despite misgivings from others about his “eccentricity,” he advocated for Peterson because he thought he could bring fresh energy and new ideas to the department.

As it turned out, though, according to Schiff, Peterson wasn’t just a little “eccentric.” He sparred with the university’s research ethics committee, suggesting they lacked the authority and expertise to weigh in on his work (despite, you know, it being their government-mandated job to serve this function). He also, alongside numerous enthusiastic reviews from people who had taken his courses and a rapt audience of those who attended, repeatedly acknowledged the dangers of presenting conjecture as fact, and promptly went ahead and did it anyway in his lectures.

For Schiff, this was fine, albeit vaguely concerning; no one was getting hurt, and Peterson’s sermons were largely confined to the classroom. The turn came, however, when Peterson not only misrepresented the relationship between biology and gender in his opposition to Bill C-16, the aforementioned gender-neutral pronoun policy but misrepresented his own risk at not supporting the law:

Jordan’s first high-profile public battle, and for many people their introduction to the man, followed his declaration that he would not comply with Bill C-16, an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act extending its protections to include gender identity and expression. He would refuse to refer to students using gender neutral pronouns. He then upped the stakes by claiming that, for this transgression, he could be sent to jail.

I have a trans daughter, but that was hardly an issue compared to what I felt was a betrayal of my trust and confidence in him. It was an abuse of the trust that comes with his professorial position, which I had fought for, to have misrepresented gender science by dismissing the evidence that the relationship of gender to biology is not absolute and to have made the claim that he could be jailed when, at worst, he could be fined.

In his defence, Jordan told me if he refused to pay the fine he could go to jail. That is not the same as being jailed for what you say, but it did ennoble him as a would-be martyr in the defence of free speech. He was a true free speech “warrior” who was willing to sacrifice and run roughshod over his students to make a point. He could have spared his students and chosen to sidestep the issue and refer to them by their names. And if this was truly a matter of free speech he could have challenged the Human Rights Act, off-campus and much earlier, by openly using language offensive to any of the already-protected groups on that list.

Perhaps this was not just about free speech.

Subsequent actions by Peterson to oppose legislative attempts by the province of Ontario to defend additional trans rights grew all the more worrisome. Peterson railed against the proposed Bill 28 under the premise that it “subjugates the natural family to the transgender agenda.” First of all, and apropos of nothing, the man missed an obvious opportunity to coin a portmanteau in transgenda. Secondly, what the heck is the “transgender agenda,” anyway? And how does it relate to a bill that sought to change the language about families away from “fathers and mothers” to “parents”? Bernard Schiff, for one, is confused, and I find myself similarly perplexed. You might, too.

This sense of wonderment quickly gives way to genuine fear, meanwhile, when considering Jordan Peterson’s conflation of Marxism, the left, and murderous regimes like those of Joseph Stalin that pervert their professed ideology to serve the purposes of the individual at the helm. Here is where Bernard Schiff’s concerns begin to echo those of Natalie Wynn’s. Wynn explicitly states her belief that Peterson is not a fascist. Whether or not Schiff believes Peterson has fascist tendencies is less clear, though he does make allusions to other people’s characterizations of Peterson and fascists in general, so that might tell you all you need to know. Regardless of exact labels, Schiff sees parallels between Peterson’s anti-Marxist, pro-status-quo language and Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist, anti-immigrant fervor. Obviously, this is not a flattering association.

Ultimately, Schiff puts forth that while he may be overstating the potential threat posed by his colleague, to remain silent presents its own risk—one he is not willing to take. Schiff, in suggesting that Peterson does not play by some of his own 12 rules—notably the ones involving assuming the other party knows something you don’t, pursuing what is important and not just what is expedient, telling the truth, and using precise language—expresses regret. Part of that regret lies in his inability to see Peterson’s rise as a self-styled cultural “warrior” coming despite the apparent warning signs. The other half of his regret, if you will, is his role in bringing Peterson to the University of Toronto in the first place. As Schiff plainly writes, “I have been asked by some if I regret my role in bringing Jordan to the University of Toronto. I did not for many years, but I do now.”

Part of what makes Jordan Peterson so frustrating to talk about is his seemingly intentional inscrutability, a quality his devotees laud as a virtue in that the “liberal media” can’t neatly fit him into a box. Indeed, Bernard Schiff goes to great lengths trying to plot out Peterson’s inconsistences. He defiantly asserts his right to free speech, but then actively tries to steer students away from professors whom he associates with “postmodern neo-Marxism.” He claims to be a champion of scientific research and inquiry but rejects attempts by university administration to scrutinize his methods and cherry-picks data to prove his point. He, like so many conservatives, decries those on the left he sees as willing victims but plays the martyr when challenged all the same. He’s calm and collected one moment, and angrily confrontational and defensive in the face of criticism the next. It’s a pretty maddening study in contracts.

Equally frustrating is trying to engage Peterson in a conversation on his terms. Natalie Wynn provides examples of Peterson’s rhetorical style, which essentially puts earnest interviewers like Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News in a no-win situation. As Wynn frames it, Peterson verbalizes something generally accepted to be true, while at the same time implying something more controversial and possibly unrelated. For instance, he’ll say that “there are biological differences between men and women,” but in the context of the underrepresentation of women in government. Your apparent choice is either to fall into the trap of arguing against the factual information Peterson presents, or to try to infer a meaning by which he can argue that you’re misrepresenting his point of view. Whatever that may be.

Wynn highlights how Peterson used this kind of argument with respect to his famous/infamous “lobster” comment, when he led with a discussion of the notion that human social hierarchies are a construct created by Western patriarchy, and followed that with a note about how lobsters exist in hierarchies and how this structure has existed before Western patriarchy. The problem with this line of discourse, instructs Wynn, is that no one is arguing hierarchies are a product of “Western patriarchy,” and that lobster hierarchies are a non sequitur to the discussion of human social hierarchies. That is, no one is trying to start a lobster revolution. Peterson’s argument, as intellectual as it sounds, is gobbledygook, more or less.

Another oft-cited moment in the Newman-Peterson interview was when Newman asked Peterson why his right to freedom of speech should trump a trans person’s right not to be offended, and Peterson countered by asserting that “in order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive,” and answering her question with another question: “You’re certainly willing to risk offending me in the pursuit of truth. Why should you have the right to do that?” Peterson’s extended response left Newman all but speechless, to which he interjected, “Ha! Gotcha!” Newman, flabbergasted, conceded defeat on this point. This moment is Exhibit A in Peterson’s supporters’ evidence that their icon “won” the interview over Ms. Newman, or “destroyed” her, or “obliterated” her, or did something else to nullify her very existence. Because there has to be a winner or loser in these types of discussions. Right.

Looking back at Peterson’s statements, it’s easier to find the flaws in his reasoning. To equate his personal offense at being challenged to a trans individual’s right to self-identification is a false comparison. This is to say that Peterson’s taking umbrage to a reporter’s queries results in nothing more than his personal irritation, while attacks on personhood for the trans community, a minority group, can lead to continued abuse and physical assaults. It’s not the same thing, something Cathy Newman might’ve been able to express given the time to parse out Peterson’s logic. You or I might’ve found ourselves similarly flummoxed in the same situation against such a skilled orator.

On top of this, Cathy Newman’s reward for attempting to take Jordan Peterson to task for expressed viewpoints and for inadvertently helping to elevate his stature? Numerous vicious personal threats. Peterson did intercede amid the harassment to ask his followers to back off, but his is the kind of sermonizing about the need to defend “Western” culture with obvious appeal to straight white Christian males that lends itself to preemptive strikes against members of the LGBTQ community, people of color, women, and everyone in between. When cultural debates are characterized in the context of a “war,” those who take up the fight with earnest believe all is fair, but this is not automatically the case.

Natalie Wynn ends her segment by abnegating personal responsibility in the debate about Jordan Peterson’s merits, professing she only likes to make YouTube videos for their production value. Bernard Schiff ruefully acknowledges his personal failure in identifying Peterson’s dangerous patterns of behavior and likens his (Peterson’s) desire to preach from the pulpit to the designs of late evangelist Billy Graham. Perhaps there is no single conclusion to be reached about Peterson that would prove satisfactory.

A common thread between the analyses of Wynn and Schiff, though—and one to which I might subscribe in my own thinking—is the idea that maybe those outside his vanguard need to take his meteoric rise more seriously. The “experts” who downplayed the threats of a “Brexit” or a Donald Trump presidency were summarily proven wrong. The hubbub about Jordan Peterson could be much ado about nothing. As with Schiff’s decision not to stay mum, however, do you believe it’s worth the risk of ignoring him?

#12 Rules for Life book #Alek Minassian #Bernard Schiff #Cathy Newman #enforced monogamy #Jordan Peterson #Natalie Wynn

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benchgenderstudies · 6 years

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The Empathy for Necrophiliacs Out of A Case Of Confederate Incest:

A Gender Professional's adventurous survey and discussion about Steven Pladl's Incestual Indoctrination of his daughter

by Michael Bench

It's the evening of April 12th ; less than a week after hearing about the stalled media reports of a father daughter couple arrest. Tonight their bodies are lifeless. Their childs' body is lifeless and Katie's stepfather is dead. Where we start with this story is Steven Pladl's selfish , reckless gratifications and the results of living for himself. About 20 years ago his now exwife Alyssa had a first child. They were young reckless teens having unprotected sex without the means to support pregnancy. Who was more reckless I don't know. Alyssa was pregnant at age 17 and gave up this child to adoption. That child was Katie. She's less than two hours dead right now.

Approximately 18 years later, Katie sought out her biological parents and was invited by Steven Pladl, her father, to move in. This time unprotected sex also seems to have occurred and in a situation no sex normally occurs. No innuendo can shield a father's lusts from taking their full social disgust to opportune sex with his daughter. She is/was cute, mind you. And, now there's a nearly warm Steven Pladl's body offering a welcome tight pucker for any Necrophiliacs that are into his type.

Just tonight I was on social media reminding the blogosphere of my disappointment in conservatives who weren't advocating for this antiscience traditional confederate example of family values. Do Americans living against science have an obligation to notice genetics? Is incest a rally of free speech against evolution? It was a love child (as Fox called it) made in conservative heaven and they wanted nothing to do with it.

Only 2 days and 45 minutes ago I had sent emails to ACLU and the Judges of Henrico County, VA citing a very simple point that consenting adults are not owed to state law biasing toward or against religion. Only 2 days and 45 minutes ago , I was led to believe any female voluntarily marrying their father would have to be convinced love was real. Shee would have to be equally into him; consenting adults have a right to their decisions. Would Sarah Palin defend them? No; She wouldn't shoo the arm of state law out of a marriage of one man and one woman. She wouldn't rail against Trump's use of celebrity video prostitutes either. He owes the national government $12,400 in taxes if he filed a joint return. Terms of marriage are terms of taxation.

This evening I see that love is a "not". Steven Pladl's love was as transient as his interest in a reputation. He is believed to have killed his wife-daughter, his grandson-son, his daughter's stepfather and himself; traveling from North Carolina to New York. If a guy is going to have a child with his daughter, lets be sure he understands it’s a symbol of commitment both tragic and karmic that he better damn well support her like any other wife. A consenting daughter, that is. These aren't ideals I craft, I'm more dusting off what advocacy Charlottesville supremacists would take no white pride for. When I decided to take the defense on behalf of religious freedom from Evolution, be sure you understand I'm okay with the southern confederates polluting their gene line into crosseyed idiots. I didn't put them up to it. I didn't tell Katie to go see her father of all people for a hot beef injection. These are the type's of details to send Katie's mom straight off for divorce. In North Carolina , two generations of the (Pladl) females didn't demand condoms. The conditions of stupidity are undereducated sexual maturity skills. What do Necrophiliacs feel about this? I wondered. How similar do they feel this is to Josef Fritzls abuse of his daughter. It really did now turn to abuse.

There's still these bodies around and leads us to our survey: Texting local Necrophiliacs:

Is Steven Pladl a good piece of ass? If you were going to judge this situation, How would you react to the opportunity to get on this fresh piece of meat?

Reacting to what you know about Stephen Pladl : What pickup line best expresses your opinion of this situation?

A: There is something broke in you. I think we can both agree we have irreconcilable differences and I'll hate fuck you.

B: Dahmmmn you freaky, I can top your bottom all rot long.

C: Well, Usually I 'd let you mourn your wife and kids but I guess since YOU KILLED THEM I'll ask for your blessing for marriage over your shoulder. I've been on a dry spell since they installed cameras at the local cemetery. Something monogamous of yours just fell onto the road.

D: No way. If I were ever going to pole you, It would be with a fishing gaff right out of your mom before you did anything else stupid.

Now why would I ask this? Superficially Necrophiliacs are our litmus test of decency. Has Steven Pladl done something to his identity so awful not even a necrophiliac would get on his pudd? Now, the deeper issue… approximately 7 inches deeper into his chilling colon. Inmate equality. Normally sexual activity is not allowed between inmates. We know these inmates are making each other their pleasure domes. Unfortunately , tonight I have sympathy for incarcerated necrophiliacs that have had no good luck getting at the shiv victims. Or worse, maybe inmate corpses are just too fresh. I don't know the fetish.

As a guy looking for the very top federal offices, I see this as a moment to look out for the little guy. To bring around just a little bit of happiness and affection out of this tragedy. Wouldn't you agree Steven Pladl treats women nothing more than an orifice of pleasure? It's Karmic. The exception case feeds the exception cases.

And where affection is not: When I contacted Henrico court, Virginia, I was not asking to discuss anything with Steven Pladl. Katie was left in jail while Steven was out on bail. Hasn't this girl been abandoned once already? I called for her release well after her freedom was already secured. It was a fresh story retelling dated material; her jailers ignored she had a child to take care of and a husband no matter how society felt about it. The state was neglecting the child and discriminating against her. She wasn't looking to reconnect for a new boyfriend and simultaneously she had very little biological inhibition to regard Pladl as her father. Just products of the good ol boy environment not caring a damn. Recklessness created this entire scene. I type of recklessness that no necrophiliac can share blame for. The crimes of the living southerners against each other made footprints past a step too far. The charges as well: We have murderers in the court system pleading down to jaywalking. IS that who should be free, really? Warrants by Henrico seemed fully ignorant of the outcomes of incarcerating only Steven Pladl while Katie would be locally weighed down with childcare. Her flight risk was low.

Four things I'd like to see come of this:

I 'd like the wedding party of surviving adoption family members to be detailed about the entire situation of Katie's seeking out her parents to her deathbed. Televised interviews.

Second, If daughter and father somehow find cause to consensually start a relationship.. despite the fact I call this Incuban Fetish related… and genetically incompetent… that a functional relationship has emotional fairness no matter who the partners are.

A scorn of conservatives for only playing the easy field for anti science and not protecting one man-one woman marriage. Distinct failures include Trump, Pladls and the ambivalence to cashing in on 'gay mental illness' by regulating the fashion model anorexia industry. Even when republicans have creationist means on their side they're too lazy to regulate for good purposes.

Finally, the medias attention to this story was delayed to an umpteenth degree so seriously compromising that it may have led to this extreme series of reactionary steps to undo what Steven came to believe was a mistake. Sex is not a mistake. Born children are not mistakes. Asking your daughter to marry you is not a questionably hazy intent.

Tonight Steven Pladl killed people to save his reputation. Tonight lives ended. To Pladl, they were only objects in his kingdom of wants. Had Steven truly 'brainwashed his daughter' into physical relations, this case would truly adhere to my definition of Incuban Fetish. In the very same as-yet-unpublished article , I divulged a similar ego/narcissism disorder known as "Pharaoh Hex".(2014) When you see homicide suicides by males concerning their families, it tends to be an episode of lack of control.

A lawyer firm partner gets pushed out, he feels out of control of his reputation. The double murder suicide of Wrestler Chris Benoit was captioned by his suicide not indicating preparedness to leave this Earth. With him he took 'his familial possessions".

Benoit was regarded as having serious brain damage from his wrestling career. We can suspect Steven Pladl might also have some problems. After all, make no hesitations to wonder if he thought this was normal and how. Was he molested? Does he have some form of undisclosed derangement that only white people get? Fox news went so far as to call the birth a "love child", such a mitigating sympathy press that Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics would not.

It's now exactly 3 days after we first read about Steven Pladl and Katie Pladl. They're dead sooner than initial press reaction has had its time. I found purpose to write this article in caution to other parents who have an abnormal affinity for your daughters or sons. I will hope that you have more sense than tarnish the family unit relationship. If for some reason your adult children go along with it; like a funny roleplay of incest; I hope you see it's not innocent. Can it be all that bad to reenact from the porn movies online? the people in your family are more than role play characters. Using them for your wants is not what families do. A family of enemies nurtured to hatefuck each other will most likely abuse each other in other ways. That closes to wonder if Katie Pladl is a dead now or dead later case. Will Steven plays the father card too often in disagreements? As disagreements do happen; a control issue that started as recklessly as forgetting to pull out has now killed her. What else might've happened that would've killed her? He was capable of murder for his own means. He'd go so far as to kill two of his children and an adult and that’s what we know.

So keep the body fresh and lets have an inmate lottery

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