At the moment we're simply talking about certain kinds of actions in response to speech. I have a problem with that control. — Terrapin Station

Which is to say you have a problem with the motives of that control. I am just saying that to label that motive "enforcement" is not appropriate, since in most cases it probably has nothing to do with "enforcing" some view or agenda.

It's at least a view or agenda that someone shouldn't say what they said.

I think it's also vital to note, per the article, that while there were about 7x more terrorist attacks in the 70s vs. the 2010s (regardless of ideological motivation), there were only 32 more deaths in the 70s than in the 2010s (which doesn't include 2017-2019), so the vast majority of left-wing terrorist attacks (+70%) were non-lethal, while a higher proportion of right-wing attacks are lethal. — Maw

A discussion of terrorism and trends in terrorism would surely be interesting.

And your comment above just adds to my point that here you do have to put into context the present with a historical comparison. Of course the comparison of terrorism in Europe would be totally different. Then of course, you had in Europe actual terrorist organizations that basically were engaged in a low intensity conflict like the IRA in Northern Ireland or ETA in Spain among othes. (This actually shows the brilliant strategy of the UK of achieving dominance over the discourse in the media even today as the conflict is referred to "The Troubles", yet which killed more servicemen and police than the Falklands war or the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan it could be called an insurgency.) In the US you have this obnoxious "culture" of mass shootings were literally the person that typically kills himself too wants infamy in the media (hence the copycats). Hence a bomb explosion that doesn't kill anybody wouldn't be noticed... with the exception of it being perpetrated by jihadists, naturally. And right-wing terrorism has it's own culture of basically using individuals that aren't related to organizations typically making their attacks on moments of opportunity. If the attacks would be instigated by a cabal of people, the police could go against this far easily by portraying the people belonging to a terrorist organization (after all, franchising terrorism has already been invented).

Yet here's the issue.

There's simply a mismatch in Izat So's basic argument that people shouldn't talk about PC issues because...there's right-wing terrorism. What is the link? Does it mean that somebody talking about a PC climate is supporting/provocating/embracing right-wing terrorism? Is talking about PC climate some kind of a dog whistle or what? Which "right-wing" commentator, Joe Rogan, Rubin, Shapiro or whoever is doing that? If I remember correctly (correct me if I'm wrong), you made the example one mass shooter / terrorist having listened to Ben Shapiro. Well, a lot of people listen to Shapiro.

Perhaps it's very difficult for you to understand, but as an foreigner this feels to me quite similar to the way in the right all aspects of "leftism" are mushed up together to paint the worst kind picture. Even the tropes are similar: with the octopus tropes of the evil intensions of the billionaires and banks behind it all sponsoring the nastyness behind the curtain.

I think it just shows the political tribalism and polarization of the political field. I really that the American discourse won't creep into Finnish politics. There are small but ugly signs of it though.

There's simply a mismatch in Izat So's basic argument that people shouldn't talk about PC issues because...there's right-wing terrorism — ssu

SSU, you have misrepresentated my position. I do think people should talk about PC issues because I think that there are some problems with PC extremism. What I don't get is why pundits seem so much more concerned about the relatively piddling cases of political correctness gone bad than the rise of the right with its potentially deadly xenophobia and misogyny. Furthermore, the pundits, "thought leaders", inadvertently appear to the xenophobes and the misogynists to give them some legitimation. They can talk about tempering political correctness rather than trying to shut down Feminist Studies departments.

SSU, you have misrepresentated my position. I do think people should talk about PC issues because I think that there are some problems with PC extremism. What I don't get is why pundits seem so much more concerned about the relatively piddling cases of political correctness gone bad than the rise of the right with its potentially deadly xenophobia and misogyny. — Izat So

We agree on something. Perhaps it should be good to ask here what you see as a problem with PC extremism? Can you give an example?

Besides, I don't think that engaging in this discussion means that people wouldn't be worried about xenophobia or misogyny...or terrorism. Contrary to the belief of many leftists, the right isn't at all an unified front and there's absolutely no love or agreement with the traditional right and the far right. They really are two different animals, just as was were Western based social democracy and Soviet based Marxism-Leninism totally different in the 20th Century. The two were literally enemies to each other.

Furthermore, the pundits, "thought leaders", inadvertently appear to the xenophobes and the misogynists to give them some legitimation. They can talk about tempering political correctness rather than trying to shut down Feminist Studies departments. — Izat So

Topics like immigration or wealth distribution are important topics to be debated even if with the first topic it is the far right and in the latter it is the far left that seek to dominate the discourse...as if they are the only ones critical about the subject. We shouldn't fall into this kind of thinking as it is the traditional way how the extremists seek to dominate the discussion and shut down, push out other moderate views. And naturally their opponents like this: what would be better for leftists to have the ability to paint the whole right with swastikas and for the right to paint the left with Soviet style hammers and sickles.

Besides, nobody is seeking to shut down Feminist Studies departments. The inability to understand that criticism is helpful and criticism, lets say about this subject, doesn't mean that you are appealing the misogynists. This is basically the problem with the dominant PC attitude towards debate: any criticism is seen as a veiled attack against the thing with the most sinister intentions possible. Political correctness actually promulgates conspirational views: someone saying one thing actually is actually saying something other.

What even is political correctness?
Is it an arbitrary mechanism for selective interfacing, akin to military programs?
Is it the base of discussion, which like in architecture, determines the outcome of the whole structure of discussion?
Is it just the new buzzword to peddle the old under the guise of the new, like with 'bio' and 'organic?

What is it?

nobody is seeking to shut down Feminist Studies departments — ssu

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/10/u-of-t-profs-proposed-website-would-target-professors-teaching-womens-and-ethnic-studies.html

Is it just the new buzzword to peddle the old under the guise of the new, like with 'bio' and 'organic? — Shamshir

The term "political correctness" has been around since at least the 80s. It's not new. It just means speaking more considerately about people who happen to be political minorities. The reason why PC speech is thought to be helpful is because we are all influenced by the discursive themes in our culture. This affects people's opportunities and liberty. So if minority people are being insidiously dismissed (or outrightly ranted against by racists with a legitimate platform like Trump) then this becomes the norm culture wide. There may be individual variations but averages will prevail.

Human brains coevolve with culture. Our brains have evolved so that we cannot fully realize our brains' design without thorough acculturation. (It is our external memory storage - our collective, cumulative memory per neuro-paeleontonogist Merlin Donald and others.) Culture changes when technology changes and we need to reorganize to be able to use it effectively. So today, we are moving to a global economy and an economy where most of the work that was done traditionally by women in the home is unnecessary and women are emerging with their voices into the public sphere. This is a public sphere that is informed by hundreds of years of public discourse narrated largely by privileged men with exponentially increasing availability of memes. It will take a while for us to overcome the holdover biases we maintain about the public good, power and who has the right to it. Right now we're going through a backlash. That's why IMO it makes sense to call out Peterson et al as SQWs - Status Quo Warriors. But we can't stay here.

what you see as a problem with PC extremism? Can you give an example? — ssu

Well, I don't think groups of people thumping on doors to drown out Peterson's talk does anything other than vindicate this fossil to his fans. I don't think it's right that professors should lose their jobs for not participating in a walkout. Things like that. Don't become the intolerance you profess to hate.

Meanwhile I think this is where we need to move away from in order to thrive as a species and not wreck the planet in the meantime...:

Lone Cowboy Individualism, Military style Tribalism and Nationalism (zero sum competition)
Domination of Nature
The sense of being entitled not to have to edit one's own pronouncements or check one's own behaviours, or to receive more than to give care, regardless of effects on the wellbeing of others.
Anti-Intellectualism

and where we need to move toward:
An understanding of our interconnectedness (individual human potential cannot be realized apart from society, culture, economics and technology)
Pluralism and Diversity enhances culture (not a zero sum but a win-win)
Environmentalism, Sustainable Development
A value placed on education and genuine expertise.

The term "political correctness" has been around since at least the 80s. It's not new. — Izat So

I did not mean it was a new word, but a new buzzword.
Epic is not a new word, but it's a new buzzword, for instance.

The reason why PC speech is thought to be helpful is because we are all influenced by the discursive themes in our culture. This affects people's opportunities and liberty. So if minority people are being insidiously dismissed (or outrightly ranted against by racists with a legitimate platform like Trump) then this becomes the norm culture wide. There may be individual variations but averages will prevail. — Izat So

But here there's a convolution.
If the cause of political correctness is to monitor exchange, and shape its path - then some side gets dismissed anyway and political correctness performs what it is battling against; making it redundant.

From one angle it would be politically correct to give everyone a fair hearing.
From another angle, it would be unnecessary, if some are clearly unfit to contribute; also politically correct.
Considering the fluidity of politics, where should political correctness take its stance?

Our brains have evolved so that we cannot fully realize our brains' design without thorough acculturation. — Izat So

Doubtful. It's doubtful that any realisation or evolution of the brain is dependent upon culture, moreso it's the opposite. No amount of acculturation will fully realise the brain, rather acculturation is a side-effect of the current state of the brain. Realisation in full would require throwing away acculturation, at least species wise.
Here's an analogy: The brain is bread, and culture is the amount of salt and sugar within the bread.
That makes culture just a flavour, which does not determine the realisation of the bread, but is reversely determined by the (type of) bread.

Culture changes when technology changes and we need to reorganize to be able to use it effectively. — Izat So

Not necessarily. Cannibals can turn vegan; that's a culture change, and it doesn't entail a technological change, but a moral reassessment. And higher grade technology, such as atomic, does not entail a culture change - the atomic bomb shows that the culture of warmongering lives on.
It's a moral question, not a technological one.

So today, we are moving to a global economy and an economy where most of the work that was done traditionally by women in the home is unnecessary and women are emerging with their voices into the public sphere. — Izat So

Unnecessary to be done by women. But cooking, clothing and cleaning are still there.
If you could, do please elaborate on how women are emerging with their voices, as I don't see any difference from where they were before. Even during the recent time of Socialism women played an integral role.

This is a public sphere that is informed by hundreds of years of public discourse narrated largely by privileged men with exponentially increasing availability of memes. — Izat So

Privileged in what way?

It will take a while for us to overcome the holdover biases we maintain about the public good, power and who has the right to it. — Izat So

If by biases and power over the public good you mean tribal warfare, it won't take that long.
As to who has the right to govern the public - that would be the monarch. :up:

Right now we're going through a backlash. That's why IMO it makes sense to call out Peterson et al as SQWs - Status Quo Warriors. But we can't stay here. — Izat So

I wouldn't call it backlash, but nostalgia. Similar to painting a masterpiece and then throwing it in the bin and starting over. Something that is sought to be overcome through Tibetan sand painting.
Clearly the path is forward, something that is the natural consequence of all this friction.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/10/u-of-t-profs-proposed-website-would-target-professors-teaching-womens-and-ethnic-studies.html — Izat So

If you read that article, it would basically be a "review" website, where the reviews are focused on a particular, anti-SJW perspective.

nobody is seeking to shut down Feminist Studies departments
— ssu

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/10/u-of-t-profs-proposed-website-would-target-professors-teaching-womens-and-ethnic-studies.html — Izat So

Ah, your favorite JP. Let's look into this with a simple Google search:

Jordan Peterson, an outspoken and controversial psychology professor at the University of Toronto known for his public refusals to use gender-neutral pronouns, started a new campaign against the perceived excesses of campus liberalism. But amid criticism he abandoned the plan.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Peterson planned to build a website that would have listed courses containing “postmodern neo-Marxist course content,” in an effort to decrease enrollment in those courses. The list was intended to reach beyond University of Toronto courses.

"We're going to start with a website in the next month and a half that will be designed to help students and parents identify postmodern content in courses so that they can avoid them," Peterson told Canadian broadcaster CTV.

In a YouTube video posted to his personal account, he highlighted English literature, anthropology, sociology, women’s studies and ethnic studies as the types of courses “that have to go.”

Professors at the University of Toronto expressed concern that they would be targeted by such a list, which also led to fears of harassment.

"Instructors of the potentially targeted courses believe that their autonomy as educators may be under threat. The proposed website has created a climate of fear and intimidation," the University of Toronto Faculty Association said in a statement to Canadian media.

Peterson, on Twitter, later said he was not going to go ahead with the plan.

(See Professor Abandons Plan for List of ‘Neo-Marxist Course Content’

So as I was saying: nobody is seeking to shut down Feminist Studies departments. And needless to say, even if JP would have gone with his website on the issue, it wouldn't be the same as shutting down Feminist Studies.

there's a convolution. — Shamshir

Nothing convoluted about trying to avoid racist and sexist language.

It's doubtful that any realisation or evolution of the brain is dependent upon culture — Shamshir

Several researchers in the field would disagree with you.

Here's a reading list if you'd like to learn more:

Laland, Darwin's Unfinished Symphony, 2017

C. Everett, Numbers and the Making of Us,

Donald, A Mind So Rare, 2001

Seems a consilience is taking shape in the field now.

If you could, do please elaborate on how women are emerging with their voices, as I don't see any difference from where they were before. — Shamshir

Well women couldn't vote. They were paid much less than men for the same job. If they married, their husbands became the owners of their property. They spent most of their time working in the home while men spent most of their time in the public sphere. Among the men, the privileged were wealthy landowners, the rich, the well connected, who set the laws, the norms of public behaviour and the stories about what women could and could not achieve given their "frailer" minds and bodies. Ideas deeply rooted in history often take centuries to be transcended, so the narrative is still mostly the old patriarchal one, but with the invention of the pill, factory produced food, labour saving devices in the home with the introduction of electricity - with these technologies - women came to occupy positions in public more and more. Optimistically and I think more realistically, the narrative will resume its progress after this backlash to rather primal patriarchal behaviours or we will just end up in a tribalized nightmare world. This short summary of Obama's recent talk in Ottawa seems pretty dead on vis the last point.

So as I was saying: nobody is seeking to shut down Feminist Studies departments. — ssu

If you read that article, it would basically be a "review" website, where the reviews are focused on a particular, anti-SJW perspective. — Terrapin Station

I read the article, listened to the interview blah blah blah and know this threat was withdrawn - but it was made. Women's studies and ethnic studies "have to go" - as ssu pasted above. The point still stands. If you want to get pedantically literal about it, sufficiently declining enrolment would result in the end of a department. And now far more to the point, which was that people can criticize PC extremism while seeing value in PC overall, rather than hammering away at everything and anyone PC to the glee of the growing band of xenophobes and misogynists everywhere.

BTW he also threatened to sue Kate Manne for her critical book review of 12 Rules in the NYT. Freedom of speech. Ha.

If you want to get pedantically literal about it, sufficiently declining enrolment would result in the end of a department. — Izat So

The thesis would have to be that a significant number of students taking the courses in question wouldn't take them if they knew the sort of information that would be in the reviews. Without knowing that information beforehand, however, they stay in the courses once they've signed up for them.

Irrelevant to the main point.

Women's studies and ethnic studies "have to go" - as ssu quoted JP above. — Izat So

far more to the point, which was that people can criticize PC extremism while seeing value in PC overall, rather than hammering away at everything and anyone PC to the glee of the growing band of xenophobes and misogynists everywhere. — Izat So

My point was just that the article didn't actually say that they were trying to--or thinking about trying to--shut down anything.

Women's studies and ethnic studies "have to go" - as ssu quoted JP above. — Izat So

Women's studies and ethnic studies "have to go" — Izat So

What does that have to do with the article about the website?

From the article ssu quoted: "In a YouTube video posted to his personal account, he highlighted English literature, anthropology, sociology, women’s studies and ethnic studies as the types of courses “that have to go.” He took down the plan for the website, but so what. Women's studies and ethnic studies are bugbears for him and remain so. He more likely had second thoughts because once he'd started on this course people rightly called this proponent of "free speech" on his hypocrisy.

In a YouTube video posted to his personal account, he highlighted English literature, anthropology, sociology, women’s studies and ethnic studies as the types of courses “that have to go.” — Izat So

Sure. he doesn't like them. Again, the website was simply going to be a review site.

You're clutching at straws. I'm not sure why you're not seeing that the point of this is not whether or not JP withdrew his plans for a website attempting to get subjects like ethnic studies and women's studies sidelined because they fall under what he thinks is "post-modern marxism" but that he made the attempt to blackball these subjects (and been willing to invest a lot of money in it to do so, BTW). Why do you defend him to the point of seeming a bit, well, ridiculous, to be honest? Even if as you say the site was "simply going to be a review site" what on earth would be the motivation?

the point of this is not whether or not JP withdrew his plans for a website attempting to get subjects like ethnic studies and women's studies sidelined — Izat So

My point is that that wasn't what the website would have been. The article makes it clear that it would have just been a review site. That's my point because I want us to say things that are accurate. Not sensationalized falsehoods.

You're clutching at straws. — Izat So

Nope, Terrapin Stations view is totally sound, understandable and I agree with it. And you were saying that there is a push to stop these fields. Well, not even that review website is up and as Terrapin Station explained, it's rather far fetched that this would mount to an academic subject to be erased away.

If you look how the article is written, it literally says that JP is saying that English literature, anthropology, sociology, women’s studies and ethnic studies as the types of courses have to go.

REALLY?

If something Professor Peterson would argue, it would be that postmodern neo-Marxist approach to these studies ought to go. That is the quite reasonable view of Petersons ideas. You can get when listening or reading Peterson. Yet to assume that he is advocating among things like English literature, anthropology or sociology to be stopped taught in university is a totally crazy interpretation.

It's not sensationalism. You've drunk the KoolAid. No point in the discussion.

Those are not seperate. Remove the "neomarxist" aspects of those studies and one fails to teach objective truths about the topic, society, its people and their relations. It would be like studying the weather without examaning the temperature, clouds or wind patterns

Those are not seperate. Remove the "neomarxist" aspects of those studies and one fails to teach objective truths about the topic, society, its people and their relations. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Having read myself sociology also I truly beg to differ.

Marxism is just a school in an academic field.

IMHO, JP is a loon. So I have to wonder why he has so many fans, when his scholarship has been resoundingly critiqued. There are a number of sane articles that fairly illustrate his shortcomings (and yes, a few less than reasonable ones that present him unfairly).

His videos show a histrionic man who makes non-sequiturs, tosses out red herrings and makes unsubstantiated statements about human nature going back to our primate ancestry, even our fishier ancestry. He thinks PC is going to lead us off the rails to Totalitarian Maoism or A Radical Feminist Revolution that will set civilization back years. If that's not sensationalist! There is just no doubt he would like to shut down women's studies and ethnic studies. He expresses his distain every chance he gets. It's very reasonable to think that given the mess of his ideas he is popular because his take on politics vindicates the regressive views of a lot of people.

Yes, Marxism is one paradigm through which to view the world.

The default that is not going to help us, however, is the position that treats society as some kind of covenant between independently self-socialized brains-in-boxes rationally maximizing their self-interest.

We aren't talking about Marxism, but aspects of social studies which Peterson labels "neo-marxist." I don't know what you take Marxism to be here, but the problem isn't Peterson's suggestion wouldn't follow a narrative we told about society, it's that it will would mean gutting the studies in question of their description of material social states and relations.

IMHO, JP is a loon. — Izat So

Your views about him were obvious even from the OP.

If that's not sensationalist! There is just no doubt he would like to shut down women's studies and ethnic studies. He expresses his distain every chance he gets. It's very reasonable to think that given the mess of his ideas he is popular because his take on politics vindicates the regressive views of a lot of people. — Izat So

Look who's talking about sensationalism.

No. Actually there is a lot of doubt. Just as he is unlikely to want to shut down English literature or anthropology.

The default that is not going to help us, however, is the position that treats society as some kind of covenant between independently self-socialized brains in boxes rationally maximizing their self-interest. — Izat So

So please help me, Karl Marx, you are my only hope???

We aren't talking about Marxism, but aspects of social studies which Peterson labels "neo-marxist." I don't know what you take Marxism to be here, but the problem isn't Peterson's suggestion wouldn't follow a narrative we taold about society, it's that it will would mean gutting the studies in question of their description of material social states and relations. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That really isn't how any academic field works, sorry.

Schools of thought have their natural lives and if they fall out of favour, typically with the last tenured proponent of the school dying of old age, it doesn't gut anything away. Only a totalitarian state like Stalin's Soviet Union can really make a political decision that Lysenkoism is now the correct way and hell with genetics.

You are giving a lot of influence to one Canadian professor.

Your views about him were obvious even from the OP. — ssu

Yes, and they are borne out to my satisfaction by a wealth of scholarly critique and observations of his videos.

Meanwhile, no one has yet answered this, the point of the OP, which has nothing in particular to do with whether or not JP would like it very much if women's studies departments were to close (which is not in the least doubt).:

Critics of extreme PC do have a point, but what I am concerned about is that they
also seem to be rejecting PC at large and
in doing so are inadvertently feeding into the deeply regressive political movements
in evidence throughout the world
(e.g., Farage, LePen, Hungarian leadership, Brazilian leadership, Trump, new xenophobic legislation in Quebec, etc.),
which ought to be much more of a concern to them
since it is far more deadly.