Here's what Terry wrote on the previous Open Thread:
Yesterday During QT, whilst announcing the list of panelists for the next programme Dimbleby, with the usual dimbebyesque smirk described Jordan Peterson as the Professor of piffle. Of course he qualified it with standard BBC “some say”, but I have never in all the years I have watched QT heard a guest disrespected in such a blatant manner. I am by no means an uncritical supporter of Peterson. I agree with a lot of what he has to say, but certainly not all. I also find the cultish nature of his following a bit disturbing, but from the BBC this is beneath unprofessional. Who does Dimbleby think he is? He is not even a proper journalist.
And here are the very words of David Dimbleby:
Next Thursday we're going to be in Dulwich in south London, and there we're going to be joined by a man who's been described as "the most influential public intellectual in the Western world" and equally as a "Professor of piffle" [small ripple of audience laughter] - the campaigner against political correctness, Jordan Peterson.
And here he is smirking during that 'small ripple of audience laughter':
On the subject of Prof. Peterson, here's a short Twitter exchange that might be of interest:
Damian Counsell: Jordan Peterson writes some daft things, but they're far less batshit than much written by non-scientific academics. Also unlike them, *millions* of people not only read what he has to say, but act on it. No wonder he infuriates them. Ditto why he infuriates journalists. Including some otherwise-sensible ones. One I admire declared Peterson a "maniac" on the strength of a video of the man expressing enthusiasm for his faddish meat-based diet. Won't somebody call the Perspective Police?
Kit Marsden: I honestly despise the expression 'giving [x] a platform'…
Damian Counsell: Yup. It just means "Get someone I disagree with off my telly!". If more TV interviewers did their bloody homework and spent more of their downtime with smart people who disagreed with their politics, then they'd fare better when interrogating populists.
Two years ago on QT, Dimbleby admitted that he had 'no idea' what the fractional reserve banking system is when responding to Douglas Carswell. That doesn't stop him feeling qualified to pontificate on economics. He is everything he's expected to be and nothing more.
ReplyDeleteThe media don't quite know what to do with Peterson's unpalatble views. He is by definition already in the fold of academia, and he's very popular so ignoring him would look petulant. So they keep sending in troops to defeat him. It must be destroyed, this thing.
They've tried everything from couch type interviews to pseudo-intellectual grilling. It really is pathetic and very revealing in terms of agenda.
He's just a professor with an evidence based set of opinions, not Beelzebub for God's sake.
When political discourse relies on a tiny Overton window of acceptable opinion, usuually resting on skewed statistics, people like Peterson will always be a breath of fresh air.
Dimbleby will get his little box of tricks out next week - the timely interruptions, the head down smirks, the mumbled asides. He might even try one of his authoritarian fatherly slapdowns to prove he's in charge.
Marina Hyde of the Guardian (beloved of low IQ Remainiacs and such like)is having a go now. Apparently, his weak point is his Canadian accent (he talks "aboot" things). So she's straight in there, never mind that she would never dare satirise a Jamaican, Chinese or even a Northern accent. Oh no, more than her job's worth...but Canadians? F*** the Canucks!!
DeleteHer other witty barbs? His facial contortions are the equivalent for "pissing through your face"...
So, looks and accent seem her main beef. She then throws in some anti-male stuff, wrongly states that Diogenes opposed masturbation (the philosopher famously pleasured himself in public).
The femocrats can't get over the lobster thing, can they? Peterson reasonable enough point was that we share with lobsters certain physiological systems related to hierarchical behaviour. He wasn't saying we are lobsters. I don't see what's so difficult to understand. He's saying we've got lots of these homeostatic hormonal systems inside us: you can work with them but you can't circumvent them.
BTW, although Marina Hyde poses as a woman of the people, she's from a very privileged background (aren't they all?) and was privately educated at great expense. She benefited from a very secure upbringing and has absolutely no sympathy for men brought up in fractured families with no male role models present while they were growing up.